The Saturn Adept
by Azusasan
Summary: Spoilers for GS2. Oh, the Golden Sun parody to end all fantasy girl self insert fics! Oh, how I only wish! Nonetheless, enjoy the ride. ON HIATUS, BUT REVISED SLIGHTLY NONETHELESS!
1. Netspeak

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N:

...Revision numero two. To get rid of copyright violations and random formatting errors. Egads!

x x x x x

It was a bland, boring day in Vale.

Isaac said that, of course, only since there were no monsters to fight, no evils to overcome, nor any Proxian hotties that needed to be ground into the dirt.

...Ahem. Do forget the last one he mentioned.

But Isaac -- poor Isaac and the inhabitants of Vale! They did not know what this simple thought could bring about for them and the rest of the heroes of the Golden Sun...

"Hey, Garet!" Isaac called from his perch on his rooftop, inching downwards toward the ladder. "Anything new?"

"Nope." His friend sighed deeply, shoulders sagging. "Nothin' to do, nothin' to fight, no women to chase after..."

"I think I'll take offense." Jenna said, appearing from the side of Isaac's house. Garet visibly jumped and backpedaled.

"I -- I wasn't referring to you, Jenna, I was..."

_Referring to me. Mmhmmhmm._ Thought a woman high up in a tree, a hood over her face concealing her features. She tapped a ghostly pale finger against her cheek, a small, evil little smile on her lips.

"Well, whatever! I wouldn't let a doofus like you court me anyways!" Jenna snorted, crossing her arms over her chest and sending a glare that could easily wither trees and dry riverbeds in seconds flat towards the other Mars Adept. "I have Isaac, and that's good enough for me."

"Jennaaaaa..." Garet wailed. Isaac blinked, not knowing whether to take what Jenna said seriously or not.

"Can it, you player."

"I'm not a -- "

_I think now is a good time._ The woman slipped out of her tree, moving silently and quickly to the entrance of the sleepy little town.

While the two Mars Adepts continued their ever-pointless quarrel, in came Garet's little-brother-who-looked-suspiciously-like-a-girl.

"Gaaaareeet!" He cried, looking oddly distressed for a child his (her?) age. "There's this weird girl who just came to the gates! She's dressed funny and has weird colored hair, and she says she's a Saturn Adept!"

The teenagers all said (quite blankly) in unison, "What?"

"A Saturn Adept?" Jenna made a face. "But those don't exist!"

"That sounds suspicious..." Isaac murmured, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

"Probably a terrorist." Jenna sniffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"A Proxian wannabe, I betcha!" Garet's brother, who also happens to be oddly unnamed, exclaimed.

"I'll go check it out," Garet said. "It's my job as the mayor, anyways."

"Not _mayor_, dork." Garet's-little-brother sighed, with a roll of his eyes. "You're _in-training_ to be the mayor."

"Shut up, squirt. Same difference. Isaac, Jenna, either of you coming?"

"I'll go. I want to see what this girl looks like... And if she's faking or not." Jenna said sternly, joining Garet. "Isaac?"

"I, um..." Hadn't his mother told him to patch up the roof again? For the third time that month? Garet really liked to walk around on his roof for no good reason sometimes...

"Aw, c'mon, Isaac! We've never heard of a Saturn Adept... Aren't you curious?" asked Garet's-unnamed-brother.

"Besides, it's a chick!" Garet said, as though it were of utmost importance. Jenna elbowed him roughly in the side.

"Fine, I'll go." Isaac said with a small sigh. "Got nothing else better to do anyways..."

And so, the trio, plus Garet's-unnamed-little-brother, set off for Vale's gates, ready to take on whatever Weyard happened to feel like throwing at them.

But of course, they weren't expecting _her_.

x x x x x

The Saturn Adept turned out to be Xanaeya (Was that the correct spelling? We may never know), a girl dressed in pale yellow clothing with hair a yellow even paler. She had carefully guarded, cool emerald green eyes that surveyed the scene with one sweeping glance. At her side was a sword -- a katana, she said -- dubbed "Fallen Moon," though she gave no reason as of to why. Xanaeya was an assassin, one given the sole responsibility of killing Isaac. But Isaac and Garet seemed to pay no mind -- they were more interested in staring at her cleavage, which, due to her revealing clothing, was easily seen.

Did I mention she was supposedly hired by Alex?

Keyword is _supposedly_, remember.

Jenna caught on to this scheme of Alex's relatively quickly – out of those present at the time, she had spent almost a year dealing with Alex and – dare I say – his quirks. But for some strange and sadistic reason, the author will not reveal the gist of the scheme... Because that would take all the fun out of it, right?

But, not having spent a time deemed far too long with Alex, Garet and Isaac simply stared.

"You're an assassin?" Jenna queried, one eyebrow raising. "So how'd you get in?"

"Jumped the gate," Xanaeya said simply, one hand on the katana at her waist.

"Isaac, she's out to _kill_ you. Shouldn't we, y'know, be doing something?" The female Mars Adept asked of the boys, but the words had no effect on them. Jenna sighed.

"They cannot hurt me. Saturn is my protector." Xanaeya stated in her quiet voice. Her brilliant emerald eyes closed for a moment, long, thick lashes against pale, smooth skin.

"Saturn is your _protector_? That's the lamest excuse I've heard in a whi -- " Jenna started, a finger pointed at the Saturn Adept, when a sudden exclamation from Isaac cut her off.

"OMGSHE'SSOOOHAWWT!1111" The Venus Adept cried out, throwing himself at Xanaeya's feet, clinging to her. Xanaeya did not look at all surprised. Jenna gaped. Garet continued to stare wordlessly.

"What the _heck_?" Jenna asked, stating all of the readers' thoughts precisely. "Isaac, what was... What did... How the... how did you say that?"

"She's pretty."

"Excuse me?" Jenna whirled around to stare in surprise at Garet, who had seemingly broken out of his trance.

"She's pretty." He repeated, not even looking at the other Mars Adept, but continuing to keep his eyes on Xanaeya. Garet didn't even seem to notice the fact Isaac was sobbing over the perfection of the Mary Sue -- er, perfection of _Xanaeya_. Xanaeya. Yeah.

"I should kill you..." Xanaeya murmured, the katana coming out of its sheath soundlessly. She held the blade above Isaac, her jade eyes narrowed. Jenna didn't know whether to be happy or to scream in terror.

But, alas, she had no need to do either, as Xanaeya re-sheathed her sword without so much as a word, her mouth set in a firm line.

"But I won't."

"Huh? Why?" Jenna's eyes widened, trying to catch the eyes of the other girl, but Xanaeya kept her eyes on the ground. "Isn't it your job to kill Isaac?"

"Yes, it is. But Alex has only been unfair to me... He's enslaved me, ever since he killed off the rest of the Saturn Adepts. I am the only one remaining, the guardian of the Saturn Lighthouse, and he imprisoned me, because he believes I have a power unmatched sleeping within me."

"So you're the last Saturn Adept..." Jenna's lips twisted as she mulled over the current facts. "You're Alex's prisoner. The last Saturn Adept. A guardian. Potentially and probably betraying Alex by allowing Isaac to live. You have mass amounts of power within you. Huh." She conveniently forgot to add the "Sounds like you're going to angst pointlessly now and eventually get Isaac into your bed" part, though.

"Xanaeya ure sooo prety," Isaac wailed, his blue eyes shining. Jenna stared, but not in the same way Garet and Isaac himself had earlier.

"...I..." Jenna started, blinking slowly. Everything had yet to really set in; poor girl. "...I'm going to...to...get Mia..." She said, pointing in the direction of her home, where she kept the borrowed (Rather, stolen) Teleportation Lapis from Sheba. "I, um... well... bye."

It was the first time in a long time Jenna had been so stunned beyond belief that she was unable to form complete sentences... That girl... She was... She was going to be a bother. With Garet drooling uncontrollably and Isaac a fangirlish mess, what was a girl to do except get back-up?

Jenna stopped in the middle of the bridge. A thought had occured to her. There were no such things as Saturn Adepts, right? She was sure of it. But Kraden would have a field day, researching this girl. With a devilish smirk, she changed her course and headed off to Kraden's cottage, set on giving the girl hell while she remained within Vale.

Meanwhile, up in Most-Evil Headquarters, Alex heard a most malicious evil laugh, sounding much like his own. He smiled thinly, legs crossed as he lounged in his Throne of All Evil. "Things are going as planned, dearest," he cooed to a white cat with long hair who slept in his lap. "Yes... Just as planned... Isaac is ruined, Garet is obsessed, Jenna is now evil... Weyard is as good as _mine_."

The cat mewled.

And Alex laughed his pretty head off.

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER ONE**

x x x x x


	2. Recruits

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N:

Considering I'm writing some of these chapters in advance (Don't need y'all coming after me with pitchforks and the like), I have no idea as of now what kind of response you will/do have about this fic... But I'm still wishing for that sk8trgurrl or other to review and make an idiot of herself. Gotta love badfic writers, mmyes?

And Xanaeya? Write enough of your own fantasy fiction, and names like that will come up within five seconds of thought. XD There might be more Sues/Stus in the near future... Actually, count on it!

OMG CHARACTER DEATH. :O

x x x x x

"A Saturn Adept! You don't say!"

"Yes, a Saturn Adept. One who claims -- er, IS the the guardian of the Saturn Lighthouse (how did we miss out on that one?), is the last of her kind, and has Isaac slobbering all over her."

"What?" Kraden, who had been pacing back and forth, whirled around to face her. "What was that?"

"What was what? That this girl has Isaac drooling over her beautiful curves?"

"No! Before that!"

"She's the last of her kind?"

"YES! THAT! She is the last of her kind!"

"So she says..." Jenna muttered boredly, fingering the cuff of her shirt. "I personally don't believe anything that comes out of her mouth at all -- "

"She's the last! Then I _must_ examine her promptly!" Kraden exclaimed, grabbing some random books off a nearby shelf and racing out, grabbing Jenna as he flew past. She yelped as she was dragged along by an old man that could run awfully fast for his age.

"Let go of me, Kraden! Y-you're ruining my outfit!" Jenna shouted as she stumbled and heard a seam snap somewhere. _Well, at least he's doing what I want him to,_ she thought. _But ruining my skirt in the process of doing so is _so_ unnecessary..._ "Kraden, if you don't let go, I'm going to -- "

Whump. Kraden let go of Jenna suddenly, and she tripped, landing hard on her knees. Wincing and opening her mouth to give the elder a good talking-to, she noticed that Kraden had stopped dead in his track, his own mouth open wide, and his books falling to the ground, unnoticed.

"Huh?" Our heroine asked blankly.

"A Saturn Adept..." Kraden said, obviously in awe. Jenna raised an eyebrow.

"Um, yeah."

"I must speak with her!" Kraden declared, flying down the stone staircase near them with incredible agility, forgetting his books and Jenna in his excitement.

"Old men... So easily excitable.." Jenna muttered, picking herself up and glancing down at the books. "He might need those..." She sighed, and reached down to pick up one. She found it extremely hard to pick up, despite the fact it looked no longer than one of her novels, if only a bit larger in length. After several attemps to pick the book up, she left it and the remaining tomes there, and walked down the steps slowly.

She could see Kraden running circles around Xanaeya -- not that she pitied the blonde brat. But, wait... What was that?

Isaac...?

"Isaac! Put down your sword!" Jenna screamed, jumping down the remaining six or so steps, racing over to stop the insane hero from stabbing Kraden so full of holes, he'd resemble cheese. "Kraden's not doing anything bad by talking to her!"

_Even though she's not responding at all,_ Jenna thought darkly.

"i must protecct the 1 i luv," he told her, blue eyes narrowed. Jenna stared back, understandably horrified.

"Uh..." She managed to utter, trying to get the strange words that had come out of his mouth to register in her mind. "...At any rate," Jenna said after some time, realizing her efforts to translate drooling!Isaac-speak were in utmost vain, "you shouldn't kill Kraden."

"Get out of the way jena," Isaac said -- or was it a command? Jenna stared. WHAT had he just called her? "i hav to protect xaneaya!"

"...Pardon?" She asked, blinking.

Behind her, Jenna heard metal ringing as it came out of its sheath. She whirled around and saw Xanaeya holding up her katana, Rising Dawn or whatever it was. With a carefully neutral face, the Saturn Adept drove the katana through Kraden's chest.

Jenna screamed.

"_How could you_?" She wailed, shoving Xanaeya aside roughly. Jenna actually didn't touch her, as she backflipped nimbly out of the way. Isaac rushed over to her. The Mars Adept didn't know or didn't care, however, as she was staring at Kraden. He seemed to have frozen exactly when the katana had been stabbed through him -- enchantment in his eyes, his mouth open while asking a question, one hand poised in a scholarly fashion. Jenna let out a long, low squeak when she saw Kraden become stone before her very eyes, the same expression still on his granite face.

"K-Kraden..." She whimpered, reaching up to touch his face. Right before her fingers brushed the stone, however, he crumbled into little bits. The pieces blew away with the wind, leaving Jenna standing, her hand still reaching out to him, though spasmodically twitching.

"I have done the world a justice." she heard Xanaeya say, and Jenna could distantly hear Isaac respond in some sort of gleeful fashion in his strange new language.

"You!" Jenna said sharply as she turned around, hearing Xanaeya begin to walk away. "W-why did you do that!"

The other girl turned slightly to look back at her, platinum blonde bangs blowing away from her pale face in the chill wind to reveal chill blue eyes.(1) "I have moments like that."

"Where you randomly kill people!" Jenna shrieked, infuriated and most confused with the Saturn Adept. Xanaeya gave her a little shrug and padded away, Isaac following her like a love-struck stray puppy.

Once the left to areas unknown, Jenna remained at the plaza, sitting next to Garet, who now stared wistfully in the direction Xanaeya had left.

"Garet, what do I do now?"

"She's pretty..." Garet said dumbly. Jenna noticed with disgust that there was a thin trail of drool down one side of his chin, and she sighed, turning her face away.

"Yeah, whatever." The female Mars Adept said brusquely. "But she killed Kraden."

Ignoring his usual response of "She's pretty," Jenna considered her options. She could still get Mia -- but what would Mia be able to do? Jenna knew Mia had a crush on Isaac, but seeing Isaac drooling over Xanaeya would probably wreck her poor heart. But then that left Ivan, Sheba and Picard. (2) She knew by this point that because Xanaeya had left Isaac and Garet dumbstruck and hopeless with love, the boys would be of no use. That meant Sheba. Though Sheba was intelligent, Jenna was sure she wouldn't know what to do in a situation like this.

Unless... Unless...

Due to some strange plothole, Menardi and Karst were still alive. (3) And due to some other strange plothole, Jenna realized this. She got to her feet, this time determined not to get off track -- she could lose more people if she did. Giving Garet a hard kick in the shin before she left, Jenna stalked away, still fuming with righteous anger.

Xanaeya would never know what hit her...

x x x x x

Jenna teleported into Prox a short time later, bundled up in a jacket she had remembered to put on before moving Psynergetically. Putting the Lapis in a pocket, she hunched over, trying to remember she was a Mars Adept, and therefore, not supposed to feel this cold, but failed miserably. After knocking on a few doors, Jenna came to the residence of Menardi and Karst, and couldn't help but feel a little bit nervous. Menardi had helped in kidnapping her, and Karst had fought her, so her fear wasn't unjustified. But her asking them for help was for a good reason, right?

"Jenna?" was the first thing out of Menardi's mouth when she opened the door to said girl's incessant pounding. "What are you doing here?"

"Long story. Let me in, please?"

With a quizzical look, the Proxian lady opened the door enough for Jenna to scamper in. The house was deliciously warm (odd sounding, Jenna thought, but it fit), and after putting up her jacket on a hook, followed Menardi into the main room, where Karst lounged in a chair, reading a book.

"Karst, we have a guest."

"We d – oh, you." Karst said, rolling her eyes and shutting her book. Sitting up properly, she asked, "What do you want, Jenna?"

"I – no, wait, Vale. Vale has a problem."

"Yeah, and what else is new?"

"There's this girl that claims to be a Saturn Adept. She has Isaac at her beck and call, and Garet stands at the plaza twenty-four seven, staring after her in the direction she left. I was hoping you could help, since... Mia and Sheba don't really seem to be much of an option, right now."

"Jenna," Karst sighed, "we have our own problems here in Prox."

Jenna gasped. "You have your own unreal Adepts running around, too?"

"There's some Pluto Adept Saturos is fawning over," Karst said dryly, smirking slightly at her sister's hurt look. "Fortunately enough for us, Saturos has enough admirers here in Prox that his fans are making her life hell."

"But...will you help me?" Thinking that maybe they needed more persuasion, she searched her brain for things that could possibly encourage them to help. "She... She killed Kraden!"

"Old man was a pest, anyways," Menardi said, twirling a lock of hair around one finger.

"Uh, uh..." Jenna considered everything else. "She has a katana for a weapon and her name is Xanaeya."

"Xanaeya?" Karst perked up. "Her name is _Xanaeya_?"

"...Uh, yeah, it is." Why was this so important to her? Jenna wondered.

One eyebrow was twitching. "What kind of name is Xanaeya?"

Jenna was tempted to ask _what kind of name is Karst?_, but she wisely decided not to.

"Xanaeya... Gah! You know what, Jenna?" The other girl eeped. "I'm going to help you, just because I can't _stand_ that name in itself! It drives me absolutely nuts!"

Well, okay. At least she got one recruit. Jenna turned to Menardi, a hopeful look in her eyes.

"Well..." She seemed hesitant. Jenna tried a pout. It didn't seem to affect the Proxian that much, though.

"I'll help you, Jenna, because I know what it's like, seeing these random girls popping up from no where, claiming ties to nonexistent elements, and making the boys sound undeniably stupid."

Jenna wasn't sure if she could even attempt to imagine Saturos a drooling puddle of a Proxian warrior. Much less Agatio, for that matter.

"All right!" She cheered. "Thanks so much, you two! It means a lot to me. I want the old Isaac and Garet back... The ones that weren't obsessed with staring at this new girl's cleavage all the time."

That only seemed to increase Karst's anger even more. "_Cleavage_? Oh, so she has nice curves, too, huh? Why that little -- "

"Now, that's just being unfair, Karst," Menardi said coolly, leaning forward as she smirked, staring straight into her sister's angry eyes. "You're only saying that because you _have_ no cleavage."

"Menardi, h-how could -- you're -- why...!" Karst sputtered, her hands fisted before her. Jenna could swear she saw some fangs... "Jenna, let's just go!"

"Um... Yeah." Jenna mumbled, stepping forward. "You'll have to hold onto my arm or something... There needs to be direct contact in order for all of us to teleport."

Karst stomped over and gripped her shoulder in one hand. Jenna winced. The other girl seemed not to notice her pain at all, glaring a hole into the far wall. Menardi rose from her seat and calmly laid a hand on Jenna's forearm. Jenna whispered Vale to the Lapis, and they disappeared from Menardi and Karst's home and reappeared at the gates of her suddenly trouble-laden hometown.

It was only after Karst had flat-out charged at the supposed Saturn Adept, screaming like a homicidal wild boar, that Jenna realized she had left her coat at Prox.

x x x x x

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Menardi hissed to Jenna, as they stood off to the side, watching Karst and Xanaeya battle.

Karst was taking deep, heaving breaths as she held her scythe in one hand (It had miraculously appeared at her side once they had teleported), numerous cuts and bruises scattered over her body. Xanaeya, on the other hand, had sustained little to no damage, holding her katana before her. Her jade eyes were narrowed fiercely.

"You cannot hope to win against me!" Xanaeya declared, whipping her katana around, then throwing it into the air and catching it, striking a dramatic pose. Jenna choked.

"go xaneayaaaaa!11" Isaac cheered from a short distance away from Xanaeya, jumping up and down excitedly. Menardi glared at him, most disturbed.

"Yeah, yeah. I've heard it all before." Karst gasped for air, switching her scythe to her other hand. Her red eyes were narrow slits. "You're going to taste metal, you pansy wench!"

Xanaeya gave a haughty chuckle, then disappeared. Karst looked wary, glancing left and right. With a fierce battle cry, Xanaeya appeared behind Karst, high over her. Menardi gave a surprised gasp as Jenna shut her eyes, afraid of what could happen a second time.

The blade soared downwards. If it hit, it would have spliced Karst's back open.

Except, you know, somebody had to intervene.

A loud screech of metal made Karst turn around, her eyes wide and being caught off-guard. Someone had leaped at Xanaeya from the side, and the assassin, being lighter than the sudden intruder, was thrown to the ground from the impact. Isaac screamed and ran over to check for any (non-existent) injuries. Jenna blinked. Ignoring Isaac's cries of "omg r u hurtt! omg speak 2 meeeee!11", she turned to the man that had saved Karst's life.

_Oh, no._ Her common sense groaned.

"Thanks for saving Karst and everything, but who are you?" Jenna asked, glancing at Karst, who lay flat on the ground, scythe next to her, as she panted for air.

The man grinned cockily, running a tongue quickly over his lips. One of Jenna's eyebrows went up. "My name's Syruss, missy."

Was it just her, or was Menardi staring at Syruss as though he were the most divine thing she had ever laid eyes on? Her eyes narrowing in suspicion, Jenna said haltingly, "My name's... Jenna."

Syruss seemed to ignore her from that point on, turning around to speak with Menardi exclusively. Menardi appeared to have fallen under a spell, her eyes sparkling. And, she was stammering. That was not a characteristic of Menardi's. Never had been. Jenna knew; she had traveled with the woman a little over a year.

"Karst?" She called, turning to the fallen Proxian warrioress. "You okay?"

"Do I _look_ okay, Jenna?" Karst responded, her tone harsh. She managed to sit up, a frown on her face.

"What's with the guy?"

"Saved you. I'm automatically assuming he's another one of _them_." Jenna sighed, walking over to Karst and kneeling. "You want me to heal you?"

"Mmph." The red-eyed girl huffed. Jenna rolled her eyes and cast a healing spell on her. "One of them, huh? And he's already captured the heart and mind of my dear sister. Kirin save me."

"Heh..." Jenna chuckled. "Kinda funny, we're the only ones not affected by these... these.. things."

"Probably because we're the only ones really dead-set on wiping them out." Karst snarled, suddenly jumping up. Jenna blinked up at her. "My sister's weaker than I am! She's weak when it comes to handsome men!"

"What, and you aren't?"

"Men hold no reign over me," the girl said angrily, bending over and snatching up her scythe. She held it so tightly her knuckles paled. "They're disgusting creatures that only take up space. Women can do without them. I know I can."

Well, Karst certainly had a few issues to sort out... Jenna didn't tell her that, either. Though the Su -- er, Xanaeya seemed immune to her attacks, Jenna was fairly sure she wasn't.

As she watched Menardi and Syruss talk, she noticed Menardi did seem overly animated. She was sure Menardi hadn't been like that around Saturos when she had travelled with them... Odd. Hopefully, though, Menardi wouldn't speak like Isaac would... She needed to know about this Syruss fellow, learn something about him... Find a way to possibly destroy him...

"Well, I must be going, now, dearest Menardi," Jenna heard Syruss say. She made a face, and knew Karst had to be, too. "Keep this." He handed her a stone. "If you are ever in trouble, it will know. I'll see you soon, hopefully... Farewell!" He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then took a small jump backwards, dissolving into nothing.

Jenna knew some muscle near her eyebrow was twitching. She just knew there was.

"How disgusting," Karst muttered as she went over to her older sister. "How could you, Menardi?"

Menardi responded with a sigh, her hands clasped the stone before her. The glimmer in her eyes did not seem to fade at all.

"He's so..._so_...perfect..." The older Proxian woman said, a goofy smile on her face.

"I think giving a rock to you was lame," Jenna told her, getting up and going over to the two of them. "Not a necklace or anything -- "

"It's a beautiful stone!" Menardi snapped. A frown was on her face, and her eyebrows were furrowed together in sudden resentment. Jenna backed away a step. Then, the silly smile and twinkling eyes returned, and Menardi stared at the stone in her hands. "It's gorgeous... You can see the world in its depths..."

Karst muttered that sounded rather like "It's _opaque_, genius..." but Menardi apparently did not hear her. Jenna stared.

"So Garet, Isaac and Menardi have been struck... They're probably aiming for us next, Karst." Jenna said sadly, turning to her only remaining companion.

"Yeah, yeah. Menardi, what element did he say he was?"

"Neptune.." Her sister said in a high voice.

"That explains the bloody blue-green hair..." Karst said, glaring in the general direction the man had disappeared.

"It's not blue-green!" Menardi shrieked. "It's..." She sighed dreamily. "Aquamarine... The color of the sea..."

"The sea's awfully murky, though..." Jenna said in a whisper to Karst. Karst rolled her eyes.

"You think she's going to realize that, after being hit by Cupid's arrow?"

"Good point..."

"He's so kind... Karst, you should be more grateful." Menardi said, clenching the stone tightly in her hands. "He saved your life after all!"

"Psh. He could've come and talked with me, then." Karst replied, wrinkling her nose.

"He has gorgeous silver eyes..." Menardi continued, sighing every other several seconds -- _maybe to accentuate her point? _Jenna mused.

"Silver? Don't you mean grey?" Karst asked, one eyebrow raised in suspicion.

"No, not grey. Silver. _Silver_." She was close to having a seizure, Jenna was sure, if Karst kept on pointing these little facts out to her.

"Ugh," Karst spat, now thoroughly disgusted with her sister.

"And Syruss... That's a gorgeous name..."

Thankfully -- or possibly unfortunately -- Menardi's rant about Syruss was cut short when Xanaeya walked up, katana resting on its dull side on her shoulder.

"Syruss was my former lover." She told them, gazing at them all in turn. Menardi stared back at her blankly, Karst glared, and Jenna blinked. "We were unable to continue our relationship because we were of separate elements, and where we come from – " here, Karst gagged audibly, " – we aren't allowed to inter-marry. So he left to travel, and soon after, I too left, to seek a better life for myself. But because he saved you from me," Xanaeya said, staring evenly at Karst, who looked as though she wanted to bite the Saturn Adept, "I should say we are now enemies."

Jenna blinked. After several moments of silence, she said, "Wait, what?"

"Syruss and I are now enemies. I have no qualms with you being his lover, Menardi," Xanaeya said, giving the blonde Proxian a slight smile. Menardi beamed back. Karst wanted to stab herself, Jenna knew, by the way the redhead was fidgeting. "I would not intrude upon true love. Just be careful."

With that, Xanaeya turned on her heel and retreated to wherever she did at the end of the day, Isaac following her, loyal as always.

"Er..." Jenna started, one loosely fisted hand pressed to her lips.

"GAAH!" Karst screamed, pulling at her hair. "What are we going to do?"

"I... I don't know..."

"I hope Syruss comes back soon..." Menardi said dazedly, rocking back and forth. Karst shot her sister a glare, then stomped away. After a moment of inner debate, Jenna ran after Karst.

Oh, what _to_ do?

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER TWO**

x x x x x

Wow, I'm really surprised (and pleased) with myself. I got this chapter done in two days, and look at its length! Yay...

(1) – Sues have color-changing eyes. ;D I demonstrated so right here! (Emerald green to chilly blue eyes!)

(2) – Note than in some stories, Suethors suddenly and for no good reason at all leave out characters. Though it pained me much to do so, I left out Felix, because a good Suethor would, too. And why are Menardi and Karst alive? Because in Sue!fics, dead characters tend to be alive, too. ;p Menardi is OOC because that's what Sues/Stus tend to do to canon charas.

BTW -- Syruss is actually a villain from one of my other works of fiction, except in that, his name is Sirus, and he's not a Stu. I really hope he isn't, at any rate... He's an obsessive stalker of the main protaganist.

_And_ he has grey eyes. Not silver, for goodness's sakes...

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of the comments I thought up of while writing, but eh, whatever.

Review, lovelies!

-Azu

x x x x x


	3. The Plan

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N:

Seems like quite a few of you scalliwags have written Mary Sues before... But now that you've reformed, let us all go bash up our past. :D I made a whole list of Sue traits, and I intend on fitting as many as I can into Xanaeya, Syruss, and any others. ;P

Dot-san -- How did you know? How did you know I'd tie in Luna Sanctum and everything? _Gasp!_ _Conspiracy against Azu!_ XD More on the other elements, when Xanaeya goes into her (totally uncalled for) lecture. :D

x x x x x

Jenna was pondering to herself the chances of baiting Xanaeya leaving and taking Isaac with her, then considered the chances of Xanaeya actually falling for it. It was easy to predict, though, that Xanaeya would see through it, being of utmost intelligence. Or so Jenna presumed. She had taken to expect the worst as of late... Xanaeya was a blonde, of course, but (also) _of course_, that also meant she had to defy the standards and was smart. As heck.

Granted, Sheba was smart, and Menardi was awfully sly and cunning, but Xanaeya just _looked_ like a stereotypical dumb blonde. Jenna didn't want to offend anyone, but she just looked like the epitome of one. Unless, of course, Xanaeya decided to randomly and suddenly change hair colors.

That would probably happen, now that she thought it...

"Curses!" She heard Karst yell in the guestroom. Jenna sighed. It seemed bleak for them now...

But wait.

Jenna narrowed her eyes, thinking of the chances of another of her harebrained schemes working. Her plan was this: Befriend Xanaeya, find out that "deep, dark secret" she knew the Saturn Adept _had_ to have, and use it against her. Her only problem would be if Xanaeya saw through to her intentions.

Hmm... But to get rid of pests, and get Garet and Isaac back (As Menardi could wait for a little bit, though Karst would not be happy), she'd have to take _some_ viable risks, right?

With a self-satisfied little smile, Jenna closed her eyes and eventually drifted off to sleep.

x x x x x

Some time later, Jenna awoke to pounding on her door, and with a groan, rolled out of bed to open the door, yelling a "If you have some evil plans, I _don't_ want to hear them yet" as she did so.

She glared sleepily at a girl who was _not_ Karst. Mentally, she screamed, "I'm melting, I'm _melting_!"

"Who are you?" Jenna yawned, leaning on the doorframe.

"I'm Marie," the girl, with reddish-copper curled locks said, her hands clasped before her as she blinked up at Jenna. "I just came from Suhalla. I'm a... cousin of yours."

_Double-you tee eff? _went Jenna's mind. "...I didn't know I had cousins that came from Suhalla..."

"Oh, but you don't -- I, I mean..." The girl said, casting her gaze to the wood panels that lined the floor. "Well, to put it honestly, I'm a princess in hiding, but..."

Unable to restrain herself any longer, Jenna stepped back and slammed the door, then leaned against it, pressing her index and middle fingers to her forehead, grimacing. First it was Xanaeya, some foreign Saturn Adept who had Isaac drooling over her every action. Then it was Syruss, who had Menardi around his little pinky finger. Now it was Marie, some cousin-princess that hailed from Suhalla...

"Um, Jenna? Are you okay?" Marie called from the other side of the door.

Jenna bit down a "_No_," and instead responded tersely, "I'm fine." Re-opening the door, she peered down at Marie, who watched her as though she would leap at her. "Sorry about that."

"It's.. It's okay." Marie mumbled, twisting a strand of hair around a long finger.

"Have you met Felix?" Jenna asked as she walked past her to the bathroom, where she washed her face.

"Felix?" Marie queried blankly.

"...You..." Jenna stopped in mid-rub of her face with a towel. Where had Felix gone? Well, it was probably some other scheme of Xanaeya's. She wouldn't be surprised if the Saturn Adept had him locked up somewhere in her harem... er, dungeon. "Uh, never mind that. Have you had breakfast?"

"Oh! No..." She said sheepishly, looking at her feet, which Jenna then noticed were clad in very fancy looking pumps. "I just got here."

Jenna had a million other questions to ask, like the reason for wearing nice shoes when traveling a great distance – unless, she mused, she _warped_ here, or even _flew_, and neither of the ideas struck as particularly surprising – but decided, for the moment, not to voice them. "You go down to the kitchen... I'll go wake up Ka – er, a friend of mine."

"Alright." Marie said, with a little nod that shook her curls. Jenna watched her go, and couldn't help feeling a little disgusted at her magnificently rich-looking dress and the gold hair pin in her beautiful hair... Which Jenna had to admit, she was a _little_ jealous of. Just a little. With a huff, Jenna stalked down the hallway to Karst's room, and pounded on it.

"What?" Karst croaked from inside. Jenna could hear rustling as she got herself out of bed.

"It's time to get up. Not only that, some random cousin I didn't know I had has just come from Suhalla, and she's also a princess... She's wearing a gold hair pin in her gorgeous coppery hair, and she's wearing awfully nice pumps, even though she just came from Suhalla..."

The door flew open, and Jenna was suddenly face to face with Karst, who looked wild with unhidden fury.

"You don't say," she said icily. "Where's the brat?"

"Kitchen." But after telling her that, Jenna suddenly felt as though she'd done a very bad thing... "Uh, don't get my parents into anything, please?"

"I won't. This girl is all I'm after. What's her name?" Karst asked as she went to retrieve her scythe in the corner.

"Marie." Jenna said dully.

"Marie," Karst said slowly, as though testing it out. With a sour look, she muttered, "Definitely a princess name."

"Or at least a name of some fair maiden that's been locked away in a tower..." Jenna sighed, and rolled her eyes.

Karst made an amused sound, then, with her scythe in plain view, went in the direction of the kitchen, chuckling evilly to herself as she did so. Jenna looked doubtfully at her as she went, the metal of the scythe flashing occasionally in the beams of sunlight that came in through the windows. Jenna sighed, allowing herself a moment of thought. What had brought all this on, after all? The rise of the Golden Sun?

No, _really_?

Rolling her eyes, Jenna walked back to her room, changed into her usual clothes, then left the house, telling her parents she needed a breath of fresh air. She didn't bother to tell them that Karst was lurking in the background behind them, knowing their lives had been stressful enough while they had been held captive by the other Proxians. Knowing a homicidal girl that had come from the place they had been locked up in that was itching to kill her suddenly-existing-cousin would definitely bug them a whole lot.

Jenna just hoped they didn't all get heart attacks or something when they finally noticed her.

The Mars Adept supposed the plaza was her best bet in finding Xanaeya. And sure enough, once she reached the steps that led down to the plaza's level, she saw Xanaeya sitting at the base of the large Psynergy Rock, Isaac beside her and holding her hand, a goofy smile on his face as he watched her intently. Jenna managed to keep herself composed and not chuck herself over the side of the stairs to her bloody death.

She had to "befriend" Xanaeya, after all. You couldn't do that while your head was in halves and your body looked like a rag doll's.

Enough with the gory imagery, though. Jenna reached the bottom of the stairs, and with a forced cheerful expression, waltzed over to the – dare she speak it out loud? – lovebirds. "Good morning!"

"waht do u wnt jenea?" Isaac asked, blinking. Jenna thought she saw some glimmer of the old him in there, but the moment passed quickly. She didn't understand (or rather, couldn't) his gibberish, so she just smiled sweetly at him.

"Good morning, Xanaeya," Jenna said politely. "How are you doing?"

Xanaeya stared at her levelly, then slowly stood, one hand on the hilt of her katana. "I know what you're doing, and I don't like it."

Jenna hoped the "Meep!" she heard had been just in her head and didn't actually come out of her mouth.

"B-but you don't even know me!" She said defensively, sweating. "You don't have any proof that I – "

"I know you want Isaac, and I'm not going to let you have him." Xanaeya cut her off, a frown apparent on her pale face, her eyebrows furrowed together and eyes narrowed. "Isaac and I... We have a bond. A bond that cannot and will not ever be understood by any others!"

"Uh, Xanaeya, I don't -- " Jenna tried, eyes clearly showing she was worried. Xanaeya still at least _appeared_ to know how to use that sword of hers.

"...He's lit up something inside of me that I didn't know existed – my soul." Xanaeya continued, as though she hadn't even heard her at all. Isaac was hanging onto her leg. "I never want to let him go, because that means I will lose my spirit..."

Jenna sighed, tuning the girl out as she did so. She had to twist everything as she saw fit... _Including Isaac, _she thought ruefully, giving the Venus Adept a look of utmost pity.

"...But you! You don't understand! Especially since the four base elements are aligned with only Sol, while my extinct race as well as that of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, are aligned with that of Luna, as we are definitely more demure and harder to understand..."

Jenna looked up at that. That didn't make any sense, though... Considering... Well... She couldn't explain it, but she knew that didn't make any sense!

"And while Mars Adepts are fiery, Venus Adepts are cool and reserved. Mercury Adepts are kind and caring, while Jupiter Adepts are scholarly and wise. Meanwhile, the Saturn Adepts are a cautious race who do not accept others well -- so by my accepting Isaac, I've basically betrayed my clan!"

_And then what,_ Jenna asked to herself. _Neptune Adepts were charming and rather... lascivious, and Uranus Adepts... well... _From what she remembered hearing about Kraden's own ranting, Uranus was basically a sideways planet, right? So did that mean Adepts from the Uranus clan had split personality disorders or something? _And Pluto!_ Pluto Adepts had to be cold and uncaring, then, due to their location...

"Then a tramp like you comes in and tries to steal him away when we've made it quite obvious we're in love -- "

"Actually, no," Jenna said calmly, finally cracking. Xanaeya looked as though she had been decked -- _Figures,_ the Mars Adept sighed in her head, _she must not be used to be interrupted, much less opposed. _"No, I haven't seen you two making out or anything, but it wouldn't bug me even if you were. Why? Because I could care less. If Isaac's happy" - and here she swallowed her pride - "then I'm happy, okay? I just wanted to talk to you, maybe get to know you a little better. I have no intention on taking Isaac away from you."

Xanaeya looked shocked for a few moments longer, then with an exhale of air, visibly relaxed, her now-violet eyes calm and serene. "...I see."

Jenna had a happy-go-lucky smile on her face and nodded. "So then... Umm..." Thinking quickly, but deciding on the wrong subject, she said, "What you said about the elements was informative!"

"I used to study the planets and their peoples." Xanaeya seemed disdainful then, careful to avoid eye contact with Jenna. "But once the Pluto and Uranus Adepts all but died out, I quit. Afterwards, I trained myself in the arts of stealth and silent killing. (1) Then Alex came and wiped out the rest of my clan, leaving me..."

Not wanting another impromptu history lesson, Jenna said quickly, "So, how _do_ you and Syruss know each other?"

Xanaeya finally raised her eyes to look at her again and Jenna was vaguely disturbed to notice they were now a bright, eerie gold like a familiar Lemurian's. A familiar, _missing_ Lemurian's. "That's personal."

"Uh, okay..." Jenna knew by now that Marie was probably dead in a puddle of her own blood, and Karst was likely to be on a rampage. She needed to retreat and rethink some things, anyways... "Well, um, I gotta go check up on my cou -- yeah, my cousin! I'll see you, Xanaeya, Isaac!" She backed away, then turned around and all but sprinted for her house, ignoring Garet, who still stood there, with birds nesting in his obnoxious hair.

Jenna stopped short of her house when a pillar of fire erupted out of the roof. With a groan, she walked into her home to see what had happened and fearing for herself as she did so. "Karst? Karst, you better not have – "

A redheaded Proxian approached her, her face charred black and the end of a strand of hair lit with fire. Jenna licked her finger and doused the flame, then stood back, a concerned but rather curious look on her face.

"That girl is evil." Karst said after coughing up a small cloud of smoke. "She attempted to cook pancakes and..."

"Burned the roof off?" Jenna blinked. "...Speaking of burning, why isn't the house in flames now, anyways?"

"She has 'amazing Mars powers' from what I've seen." Karst muttered, brushing some ash and things

off her face. "Far more powerful than any Proxian warrior or savior of the Golden Sun's..."

Feeling oddly offended, Jenna rolled up her sleeves and stomped off to the kitchen, knowing that if Marie continued to stay under her roof, her place as daughter would soon be nonexistent. And that was one thing she _wasn't_ going to let go of so easily. (2)

"MARIE!" Jenna yelled as she stormed into the kitchen, eyes aflame with anger. Marie turned around from her spot at the stove, a bright smile on her face and no apparent trace of an explosion of any sort in the area.

"Jenna, you're back! Have some of my pancakes, they're delicious, or so your parents tell me." She said, beaming like a morning...sunbeam. Jenna grimaced internally at herself for even _thinking_ like that.

"Um..." What would Karst say, being the paranoid Proxian she was? _Don't eat it, _she'd say, _it's probably poisoned with her noxious sweetness! You cannot let her win your over to _their _side! _"I – I'm allergic to pancakes!" Brilliant, Jenna.

"Oh, really?" Lucky for her, this cousin of hers was about as gullible as Garet when he was completely sloshed. "That's too bad..." Marie said, with a frown that seemed to draw dark clouds over the sun.

"I'm not feeling hungry right now, anyways... Maybe next time?" Jenna smiled. She seemed to be faking a lot of those recently...

"Yes... Yes, maybe I can make you lunch!" Marie smiled, chasing away the dark clouds. Jenna turned around to face her parents seated at the table nearby, allowing her frustration to show on her face but keeping her eyes on the ground.

"I didn't know you were allergic to pancakes, Jenna," her father said, spearing a piece of a pancake on his fork and popping it into his mouth. Jenna stared at him, unsure as of how to respond. Thankfully, she didn't have to, as another explosion -- one outside -- cut anything coming out of her mouth off.

"Karst! That's a tree, you idiot!" Jenna screamed as she ran outside, grabbing a short sword placed awfully conveniently near the door as she did so. "That's not a... a..."

Karst held two fireballs in her hands, glaring up at some strange being floating in the sky. Jenna wanted to cry, seeing the girl's long, snow white hair and demure, red-eyed gaze, and majestic silver wings spread out behind her, blocking out the sun's light.

"Again?" Jenna asked weakly as she managed to stumble over to Karst, who hadn't broken her stare with the angelic being.

"Yeah. I'm guessing it's a _true_ _Luna Adept_." She hissed, drawing her hands back and combining the two fireballs to form a large one.

_Does she mean Pluto? _Jenna thought to herself for a moment, before saying carefully, reaching for Karsts's arm, "Um, in all consideration, Karst, all of these new Adepts seem fairly powerful... Are you sure _angering_ one would be a...good idea?"

"Shut up, Jenna. I'm sick of all these random Adepts popping up and – and – destroying my sister!" Jenna raised an eyebrow skeptically. "If I go down, at least it's for a good cause!"

"Karst!" Jenna cried, not liking where the situation could possibly lead. "If you go, I'll be by myself – "

Another woman's fierce battle cry cut through their bantering, and a sword's tip burst out the angelic girl's body – through her gut. Jenna winced as a spray of – _what?_ – silver blood rained down to the grass, crystalizing it upon contact. The sword twisted once before slashing all the way through upwards. The angel burst into a million little shards of glass, and the feathers of her glorious wings rained down upon them.

"All these people... They're from my past. They're haunting me."

Jenna and Karst blinked. Karst's fireballs disappeared.

"But I don't want them to hurt the ones I care about..." Xanaeya (Jenna saw that coming, for some reason) said softly, walking up to them, her katana pointed at the ground as she held it limply in her right hand. She gave them a weak smile. "Especially not you, Jenna... My new friend."

Part of Jenna's mind panicked at hearing that, while the other was reduced to mush at the sweetness. But the first half slapped the second half, and Jenna looked calmly back at Xanaeya, who had fallen onto one knee. Karst glared down at the Saturn Adept.

"Er... Are you okay?" Jenna asked, bending down to the blonde's level.

"I'm fine... It's just... My katana is not made to take the life of that of one who forged it..." Xanaeya panted, one eye shut in pain as she held her side. Jenna's eyebrows raised. "I'll... I'll be fine..."

Jenna knew Karst was attempting to _glare_ Xanaeya into the next world, but was failing miserably.

"Say..." Jenna said before Karst could call up a meteor or something similarly painful, "What do you say about us going in and having some coffee, and talk about... some... things?"

"Do you have tea?" Xanaeya asked, still wincing.

"Um... Yes..."

"That'll be fine, then," and she promptly collapsed. The two Mars Adepts stared at her body for a moment.

"Can I put poison in her tea?" Karst asked, a hopeful light in her eyes.

"No, Karst," Jenna sighed.

You need the girl in question to be alive to pull off the Plan, after all.

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER THREE**

x x x x x

(1) – Ever notice Sues seem to 'train themselves' when it's practically impossible? I've heard of Harry Potter Sues teaching themselves wandless magic... Is that even possible?

(2) – Jenna's right -- these Sues suddenly pop up and completely push another canon character out of the story and take their place. I made Marie into the type of Sue that everyone accepts and is capable of anything and everything _except_ fighting. ;D

Some of you may be asking why poisoning Xanaeya wouldn't be easier, and I have two reasons: One, it'd cut the story a lot shorter, which is not my aim, and two, how do you know she isn't resistant to poison, like most Super Sues are:P Sues are vulnerable _only_ to their Deep Dark Secret. It's the truth! ...Most of the time, anyways.

'nother Azu fact: I once named Jenna 'Marie' in the GS game by way of the naming cheat. Eheh.

x x x x x


	4. Of Soups and Sparrows

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N: Hopefully, you guys will be getting this _before_ I go to Japan...

...Yes, you read right! I'll be in Japan from the 23rd to the 5th of July, so no updates until sometime after then. My LJ, as usual, will probably still be updating, if I can get ahold of some internet connection... But 'til then, deal without, mmkay?

I love you all, just to let you know. ;D So, you know, if my plane crashes into the Pacific, at least I said "I love you!" to everyone who reads this. Even those who... _ahem_... Borrowed some ideas. e.e

Xanaeya is pronounced 'zah - nai - yah', for those of you who are (remotely) curious. But for all heck, it could be pronounced 'zah - nay - ah' or 'kah - nai/nay - yah/ah'. ...Um, yeah. But it's the first pronunciation I had in mind when I made up her name...

x x x x x

Since Karst refused to help in any way, Jenna had to haul/drag/heave Xanaeya into the living room of her home and dropped her on the couch. Karst was sending her Very Evil looks throughout the entire dragging process, and now that the blonde was unconscious and lying on a couch, Jenna presumed that Karst thought it was now okay to rant very loudly.

"She's one of _them_, Jenna! We can't house her and her evilness! And where's her pet, anyways?"

"You mean Isaac?" Jenna asked as she put a cool cloth on Xanaeya's forehead, which was suddenly quite warm. She considered Karst's demands, and wondered why she was doing this again... Oh, yeah, because it was The Plan. She sighed. "I don't know. Maybe we got lucky and he wandered off somewhere..."

"Psh. Not likely to happen. He has.. what, an invisible, unbreakable bond with her, right? We're lucky if he doesn't Ragnarok your house down when he finds out Xanny's unconscious here."

"Look, Karst, I have a plan, and..." A thought occurred to her, and with a little smile, she said, "Hm, I wonder what happened to Menardi? Did Syruss go and take her to be in his harem of beautiful Weyardian women, or...?"

"H-how dare you!" Karst sputtered, slamming the bottom of her scythe into the wooden floor angrily.

"Now that I think about it, I haven't seen her all day... I wouldn't be surprised if she's feeding Syruss grapes in some haven full of shining purple crystals and pools of healing water..." Jenna continued, allowing her imagination to sit in the director's seat for a moment.

"Jenna..." Karst said, her tone rather dangerous sounding.

"But really, Karst, aren't you worried at all about Menardi? She could be dead, or being tortured, or..." She trailed off, looking at Karst with one of those 'And You Know What Else' looks.

"You just want to get rid of me, don't you!"

"I'm worried about your sister, dearest Karst. She WAS going to help us fight these... things... but now she's been _enchanted_ by one. You should go and find her, Karst! Weyard may depend on it!" The other redhead exclaimed, dropping to her knees in front of Karst, hands clasped and held above her head. "_Please_!"

Jenna was afraid Karst would finally blow and stomp on her, but the Proxian lady glared at her, grit her teeth, then stalked out of the house. When Jenna watched her leave, she saw the flowers lining the walkway leading to her house wilt as Karst passed. With a sigh, she turned back to Xanaeya, rising to her feet.

"Well," she said to the (presumably) unconscious blonde, hands on her hips, "I have to keep you alive... Can't get your Dark Secret from a corpse, after all..."

"Jenna, would you – oh!"

Jenna turned around to see Marie standing in the entryway to the kitchen, a skillet in one hand. She looked surprised to see the unconscious girl on the couch... Jenna couldn't blame her, though. "Yeah?"

"Who is that?"

"A... friend." Jenna said carefully, glancing back at Xanaeya momentarily. "Her name is Xanaeya, and I think she, um, has a fever or something..."

"Oh no! That's horrible." Marie said, growing more and more concerned looking by the second. Jenna blinked. "I'll go make some of my soup... Mother always said it was life-nourishing." The girl turned back into the kitchen without a further word, her copper hair whirling around majestically as she went. Jenna raised an eyebrow.

"Life-nourishing. Right." Jenna sat down on a chair nearby Xanaeya's unconscious form. She sighed. "Maybe lighting the lighthouses was a bad idea... If it made all these new elements and Adepts pop up..."

She was about to go into the stereotypical girl angsting process at that moment, but a rapping noise distracted her. (Oh, the horrors that would be if she had fallen into that process!) Jenna followed the noise to the back, where her room was. Looking toward the window, she saw something prodding it, and went to inspect, ready to backhand anything that attempted to... ahem, touch her.

"Who's there?" She called, stepping slowly in the direction of the noise.

"It's me, Jenna!" A familiar voice called. Jenna's eyes widened, and she ran over and threw the window open.

"Felix?"

"Jenna!" A normal sparrow with an oddly spiky brown crown (1) perched in a tree outside chirped. Jenna stared.

"..." was all she could muster in response.

"Um..." Felix... er, chirped, seeing her look. "That girl turned me into a sparrow for easier... uh... safekeeping. But she's an idiot, and I flew out when I had the chance. I have to go back before she notices that I'm gone, though, because I'll be roadkill..."

Jenna blinked, and her brain and its thought processes suddenly returned to her. She leaned out of the window and asked the tiny bird, "Who is this girl?"

"I don't know! She's blonde and she has... I think she has purple eyes, but sometimes they're green, other times they're – "

"NOOO!" Jenna screamed, clutching at her hair. "She wouldn't! She _wouldn't_!"

"Jenna! Jenna, calm down! Tell me what's wrong!" A small part of Jenna's mind was half-heartedly amused that he was still the typical worrying older brother while in the form of a sparrow, of all things. Xanaeya should've just turned him into a brick... But then the other half was going nuts, and of course, the psycho half _always _overrides the first, more mentally stable, half.

Jenna whirled around from the window, and her long ponytail flew and slapped sparrow!Felix across the face, sending him tumbling off the branch of the tree. The Mars Adept, however, didn't have a clue she had just made Felix more paranoid because of her dangerous hair. She walked across the length of her room, pulling at her hair and gritting her teeth. She _knew_ Xanaeya or somebody had Felix locked away in a room full of plush couches and purple silks! But now... now...

"Felix!" Jenna turned back to the window and walked back over to it and stuck her head back out. "Felix?"

"I'm... alive..." A sparrow flew in an odd fashion back up to the same branch as before. "I'm... I'm fine. What were you going to say?"

Feeling disturbed knowing Xanaeya, his captor, had said something eerily similar just a few minutes ago, Jenna frowned and looked at the ground. "Uh. Um. Oh, shoot, I... I don't remember!"

Felix tried to sigh, but found it hard to do so while in a bird-ish form, and settled for ruffling up his feathers. "Jenna, I have to go soon, so..."

"Oh yeah!" How could she forget? "Does this evil captor-lady of yours try to turn you into sashimi using a katana?"

Both of them mused for a moment how either of them knew what sashimi _was_. Then Felix said, "No. Why?"

She'd expected the "Why?" Anyone who knew Felix knew the "Why?" was always, _always_, slapped onto there for good measure, without fail. And, of course, because Felix was his normal paranoid self. "Well, dearest bro... All evil ladies carry katanas, you see. But, uh, aside from that... Is she blonde? Have blue eyes?"

"No. More like finely spun gold thread that glimmers far brighter than any falling star... And the most sapphire of eyes... So deep, you can drown in their depths..."

Jenna jabbed her brother roughly in what she presumed was his stomach. But, heck, he was so fluffy, she couldn't tell for sure. "Stop that."

"Huh? What?" The bird blinked at her. Jenna restrained herself from backhanding her brother.

"Do you... randomly spout random prose about your evil captor-lady? Prose that deals with gold thread, falling stars, and sapphires?"

"No. Not that I know of – "

Jenna screamed. Was _everyone_ except Karst and herself under this evil woman's _spell_?

x x x x x

A few minutes later, Felix had to fly off to wherever he had come from, and from what he'd told her, Jenna knew Xanaeya's hideout was in the forest nearby, in some huge tree that apparently nobody noticed before, despite its greater-than-Mt. Aleph-tallness. Whatever.

And she owned a stallion named Jakinda or other, and an eagle she used for hunting. Jenna saw all that coming, of course.

Worst of all, Xanaeya _did _have a harem.

Or, at least, Jenna thought she did. Felix had talked so quickly – and his chirpy voice made it all the harder – so she wasn't very sure. But when she asked, "Does she have a harem of pretty boys?" he squawked something about a dungeon... Then he seemed to catch onto something, and reprimanded her for asking about pretty boys.

I can't help it, Jenna thought irritably to herself. All the pretty boys are under her control, after all. There's none left for the _normal girls_.

She was beginning to wonder what the definition _of_ "normal girls" was.

She tramped back into the main room, and saw that Xanaeya was still as dead to the world as her parents were after bingo night. But just to check, she waved her hand over the girl's face a few times. No response. But this being Xanaeya, she'd still better watch her step and avoid saying anything about a brown sparrow with odd feathers outside her window... Jenna figured she knew all ready, though. Being Xanaeya, of course.

"Marie," Jenna called, standing at the side of the couch, "that soup done yet?"

"Almost!"

The Mars Adept sighed and plopped herself down on a nearby chair, running a hand idly through her hair. Where did all these girls come from? How did they manage being so easily charismatic and beautiful? And have gorgeous hair she wanted to have? Why was her brother emprisoned?

Well, he's a part of her harem, right?

Ignoring the cynical part of her mind, Jenna glared down at the floor. Sure, she knew life wasn't fair. It if were, not only would these psycho chicks not be around, she wouldn't had to have dealt with Saturos and Alex. Male Proxians were nutty. She'd found out the hard way. And blue-haired evil freaks with nicer hair than Menardi's? Guys like Alex _always_ signaled bad things.

Speaking of Alex...

...Nah.

What would the loser be doing now, anyways? Surely, not... planning her demise or something?

...Of course not. Jenna flicked away an annoying strand of hair, then noticed she had a split end. She yanked it out viciously.

"Soup's ready!" Marie called happily.

"Great," Jenna said, not quite as enthused.

x x x x x

Some time later, Karst came tramping back, with no Menardi in tow. Guess that meant she was unhappy, Jenna thought. Or maybe it's the fact she's charred, and the flowers and grass are wilting?

"How'd it go?" Jenna asked, going out to meet her. She knew the answer. But asking was _such _a temptation.

"Bad." Karst said shortly. She glared at Jenna, as though to say, _This is all _your _fault_.

"Um." Jenna responded. What would you say to a burnt and grouchy Proxian warrioress, after all?

"That Xanaeya girl still here?"

"Uh, yeah..."

"And Marie?"

"Yes..."

"No angels running amok or anything?"

"Not that I know of."

"Your brother around?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

Was Karst _blushing_? Jenna decided she'd used up her luck for the day and didn't ask about it. The two of them went back inside. Karst disappeared into her room, presumably to come up with some Deviously Evil Plan. Jenna watched Marie spoon soup (Which was an odd green color) into Xanaeya's mouth.

Wait, hadn't Xanaeya been unconscious?

So Marie had a healing touch. Better than Mia's, Jenna bet. ...Whatever, went her cynical mind.

"Is she doing any better?" Jenna asked of Marie.

"Oh, yes! Her cheeks aren't such an ashy color, and her fever's going down." Marie smiled a beaming smile that almost blinded Jenna with its... brightness.

"Er, okay. That's good..."

The door burst open at that moment, startling Marie. Jenna sighed.

"omg wheres xanaeya!11?"

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER FOUR**

x x x x x

(1) – I think it's called a crown. I own cockatiels and don't know if it's called a crown or a crest... I think you guys get it, thought...

If you're going "Who's that?" in response to the last sentence... Go read the other chapters again, foo. :D

If this sucks – it's because I wrote this in really short amount of time. Given more breathing space, it'd be longer and better. But since I'm going to the airport in, oh, less than three hours, I had to scrap up more than half of it really quickly. Eheh. When I get back, I'll fix it up, 'kay?

x x x x x


	5. Not to be Trusted

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N: Oh, yes, Azu's back! And before you ask, Japan was so-so. Good food, loads of shopping, too much walking, too much time in cars, and evil second cousins! That, and my grandmother's house is downright spooky. It creaks. _Everywhere_.

I know most of you are expecting like three chapters because of my absence... But... ah... Heh... I'm not writing any more in advance nowadays... I'll try and write this real quick and start on the next to post soon after the fifth chapter, but I wouldn't bet on it. What with me and my problem with jetlag and all...

x x x x x

"omg wheres xanaeya!11?"

As soon as Jenna heard the first garbled words, she just _knew_ bad things were headed her way again.

But hey, when you worked alongside an Evil Proxian Redhead that you guessed had a crush on your brother, and your best friends were under the Equally Evil spell of some weird blonde assassin chick, bad things were just bound to come your way. (1)

"Isaac, look..." Jenna started, taking a step towards him. Isaac, however, was apparently being told by that invisible, unbreakable bond that linked him with Xanaeya that the girl was in Utmost Peril, so that meant he was going to go save her and look like an idiot at the same time.

"omfg waht did u do 2 hre!1?" He screamed. Jenna backpedaled as his sword came flying out of its sheath, doing the stereotypical glint-in-light as he held it aloft.

"Uh..." Jenna squeaked, the back of her knees bumping into the arm of a chair.

"Isaac, stop." Marie commanded, rising and holding her palm vertically at him. Jenna watched, bewildered, as Isaac's weapon dropped to the ground with a clunk and his fiery blue eyes fell into some glazed over, blank stare. His arms fell to his sides, and his feet moved into a normal standing position.

Jenna attempted to get something out of her mouth, but her voice box had broken in a timely fashion. The cynical part of her mind was saying snidely, _I totally saw THAT one coming_, but the rest of her brain had stopped dead in its tracks, similarly to Isaac.

"Don't worry," Marie turned to Jenna, a smile on her pretty face, hands clasped before her, "he can't hurt you now."

"...What?" She managed to say. _Brilliant way to impress the... THING, Jenna_, said the cynical part of her mind.

"I stunned him. It's a skill I learned very early in my life... Rather useful when it comes to violence," said Jenna's nonexistent-but-supposed-to- be-related-cousin.

_Because you don't know HOW to fight, right?_ Snickered Jenna's cynical mind.

_Get out of my head,_ Jenna snapped mentally back at it. It _is _quite disturbing, to have some cynical thinking going on in your head without you being consciously aware of it, you know.

"But I... he..." Jenna gestured frantically with her hands, not sure of what to say. Marie looked sadly down at the ground.

"He does love her... But whether she truly loves him back is certainly a question. But since Xanaeya is unconscious, I suppose it's for the better for him to be like her and be unconscious as well." The smile returned, tenfold, and Jenna actually had to squint to see past all the blinding golden light.

How she knew Isaac was in love... No, wait, under Xanaeya's spell, was also questionable. But Jenna's mind (nor her mouth) really felt up to much more thinking, and so, she plopped herself into the chair she had ran into, sighing. A nap would be nice. But she knew she'd have weird dreams revolving around cackling, loads of fire, green soup, and a barbecued sparrow. She just _knew_ she would.

"I'm going for a walk," Jenna announced then, pushing herself up from the chair and grabbing her usual short cape from beside the door. "Keep an eye on those two... _lovebirds_... for me, will you?"

"Okay!" Marie said energetically, smiling, her perfectly straight white teeth gleaming at Jenna ferociously. The Mars Adept winced and ducked out the door, running as fast as she could from the hellhole known as her home.

_Why did this have to happen?_

x x x x x

Jenna sighed, dragging herself along a path that eventually led to somewhere. She didn't feel bothered enough to check out her surroundings and figure out where she was heading, but it didn't really matter. As long as she got herself _well_ away from that evil... place... Oh, her home! How she wanted her _home_ back... The one that wasn't infested with lovesick, babbling swordsmen, crazy harem-owning assassins, and nonexistent distant royal relatives.

Hey, wait a minute. Jenna stopped in her trudging and considered Marie's royalty. Since Marie claimed to be a _cousin_, that meant Marie's mother was an aunt, and her aunt had to be royalty. Unless Marie was adopted, and...

Jenna grimaced and sighed. A girl Marie's type just _had_ to be adopted. So maybe she wasn't royalty. It would've been awfully nice to be a princess, and have nice clothing and only the best hairdressers to do her hair... And be away from this wretched place...

So wait, how was she a cousin, if she were adopted? She claimed to be a cousin, after all, but if she were adopted, she wasn't _blood related_...

Jenna felt considerably better. She definitely didn't want to be related to a girl like Marie, princess bloodline and pretty hair or not. She was just too... _perfect_... to like. Ever.

It made Jenna glad for the boys she had grown up with, despite them being idiots and all.

She sighed and looked up, noticing that the waterfall was coming into view. Joy. _Some beautiful scenery will be sure to cheer you up_, sneered the cynical mind that had apparently sneaked back in sometime. Jenna was too stressed, too tired, to really care.

Something was different about that waterfall, though...

Maybe it was the fact it was spurting out silver water?

Nuts. Something – or, more likely, _somebody_ – had enchanted the waterfall. That meant...

She had to investigate! And terminate!

Shoving her sleeves up her arms as she went, Jenna stalked over to the waterfall's edge, thinking how pleasantly the water could boil if she threw several Dragon Fumes at it, potentially burning anyone inside...

Well, it was impossible to _jump_ into the waterfall, what with its powerful surge and everything. But Jenna knew better. There were loopholes. (If a girl like Xanaeya existed, there _had_ to be loopholes, there had to be!) She looked around. Nothing suspicious. (Another to add to that growing list of 'As to be Expected's.) Jenna glanced up and down the waterfall itself. Nothing different, aside from the obvious color change. She wondered for a moment if the mayor had gotten sued by a random Valean yet, for possibly poisoning their water supply, or something. He'd probably blame Garet, and, if she knew Garet, he'd probably still be back at the plaza. Unless his scary male-yet-maybe-female brother (Sister?) hauled him back to their house.

Unlikely, however.

Jenna kicked the stone cliff, having nothing else better to do. A piece of the wall, which resembled a craggy doorway, pulled itself back, then raised itself upwards, until it disappeared completely. A long passageway full of glinting blue and purple crystals greeted Jenna.

"How typical," she muttered, then walked in cautiously.

There was a melodic voice singing a song with strange, but easily flowing, words. She followed it, constantly jabbing herself on sharp, disguised-as- pretty-things crystals. Muttering something about interior decorating, Jenna rubbed her knees as she limped deeper into the cave – what could be our heroine's ultimate death!

I'm sorry, it's the jetlag speaking. Anyways, Jenna came to a crossroads, each tunnelway dark and rather forbidding.

"Why do I get the feeling this is ripped from another video game?" Jenna hissed to herself, shoving the nagging cynical voice out of her head for the second time that day. She had to find her way by that annoying song, after all... (2)

Worst of all, when she went and stood next to each passageway, the singing didn't get any louder or fainter. Jenna considered just going back out – the place just _reeked_ of bad things, after all – but when she turned around, she found that she had lost her place. And all the doors looked exactly the same, with exact crystal placement and all. Had some creepy interior decorator done all this to confuse any bumbling idiots that happened to get in?

_Hey!_ went Jenna's cynical mind.

Turning around and around in circles, Jenna tried to remember which door she had come in through... But it seemed like the room moved with her, making it all the more difficult. Jenna finally stopped after some time, clutching her head in dizziness, and sighed. Could her day possibly get any worse?

_Why yes!_ went Jenna's cynical mind. It was promptly slapped with a tuna.

There was the soft rustling of heavy robes behind her, and Jenna turned around slowly, her mouth and eyes already set in a look that read, "_Another_ one?"

A petite woman dressed in winter robes that matched the color of the (dratted) crystals stood in front of a random door. A cloth was draped over her eyes, and Jenna found being able to only see this woman's nose and mouth was rather disconcerting. Her hair, long, ankle length, was a cream color and clipped with numerous pins, strings of pearls, and other trinkets.

Jenna pondered briefly if she should ask the mystery woman about the small, angrily twittering bird caught in a nasty looking knot of hair, jewelry and brooches. She decided not to. If it wasn't Felix, the birds could worry about themselves. They weren't as being negatively affected as the humans, anyways!

Well, aside from being caught in this woman's hair...

"Child," the woman said quietly.

"Um," Jenna responded.

"Are you one of them?"

"Wh-what? One of _them_? Who?" Jenna blinked, leaning forward to catch any words. She spoke awfully quietly.

"One of them?" The woman asked again, a little louder. "Are you... gifted?"

"With Psynergy?" Puzzled, Jenna decided that asking numerous questions was the only way she'd get any answers. (_Kinda ironic_, went the cynical mind. It was once again slapped with a fish.)

"No... No, I don't think you are." She sounded relieved. Then something clicked within Jenna's mind.

"Oh! Oh, you thought I was one of those... those... wannabes that call themselves humans?" What else could one call them? Well, Jenna could think of numerous rude names, but she wasn't sure if the other girl would appreciate them much.

"Yes, one of... them. You aren't, are you?"

"No! Never! I'd _never_ want to sink to their level..." Jenna said. It was the first time she'd come across an anti-_them_ supporter. At least, she guessed this weird lady was. She couldn't help but grin.

"Good. Good, very good..." The woman murmured, turning slightly away form her.

"Huh? Why do you say that?"

"Well..." The lady hesitated. Jenna wanted to tear the stupid cloth over her eyes off, it bugged her.

"Say... Do I know you? You seem really... familiar." Jenna said, taking a step forward.

"Uh, er... Perhaps you've seen me in your dreams... I, um... We've never met in this plane."

"Plane?" Oh, great. "By any chance, are _you_ one of them? By the way you talk..."

"Don't you dare insult me that way!" The woman snapped, reaching for something hidden inside her cloak. Jenna froze. The woman sighed, then relaxed again. "I'd never join their evil ranks. They turn our friends against us by mind-control, make us look non-existent..."

"So you're..." Jenna started carefully, an index finger pointed at the mysterious woman.

"I hate them." She said coldly, simply. "But in order to defeat them, I'm helping them."

Jenna didn't understand that logic, and voiced her confusion. The woman smiled thinly.

"You see, all of them eventually come here. The waterfall's rather alluring to their kind, you probably know... And I meet them, talk with them. Make them feel special, as though I don't appear to anybody else except those that are Chosen, are True Ones, are Guardians, and all that. I give them advice, compliment them, give them worthless trinkets..." The woman voice took a bitter edge, one that Jenna herself knew – she used it quite often as well. "And they're too stupid to realize I'm simply tricking them into giving me their trust!"

"Wow." Jenna said, blinking down at the sparkly floor. Glancing around at the pretty crystals, pools of silver colored water, and general sparkliness, it was no surprise _they_ liked this place. "Er, well..."

"And as I understand it, you're attempting to fight them as well, aren't you?"

"Yeah." Jenna sighed. "But it's a nightmare... One of my partners got kidnapped by a... a... _male_ one, and the other one's holed up in her room, ticked off at me. And I have a best friend immobilized by beauty, one speaking some weird language and threatening me, a random princess for a cousin, and some weird girl that's pulling all the strings but thinks I'm her best friend," she ticked them all off on her fingers as she went. She thought the woman was looking at her sympathetically, but then, the dratted cloth made things uncertain.

"I know how you feel." So it was sympathy. Jenna always claimed sympathy was useless, but she realized how much she needed it. So few people understood the horridness of these... things... "I'm harassed by them daily."

"Ugh." was all Jenna could muster in response. The woman smiled slightly.

"I'm not sure how to help you, to be honest... But since we're both working for the same goal, I'll tell them that... They should trust you. Because that's how you're trying to rid of them, right?"

The Mars Adept nodded.

"And so, once they trust you, they'll begin to tell you things... Little details. Pay attention to those; they're priceless in order to defeat them."

"Okay..." Jenna said, fingering a strand of loose hair. "Details? But I suck with details..."

"I'll help you. They believe I'm their One True Goddess or something, so we can compare notes and things."

"Right. Well, I'll... um..."

"Go back to your home, Jenna. Rest up."

"How do you know my name?"

The woman took it in stride. Jenna was still suspicious, though. She knew telling this complete stranger her plans and hatred against _them_ was really unwise, but it was too late now... "Well, I do know you, actually. From a time ago. But you won't want to hear it, it'll resemble one of their pasts..." The woman sighed, waving a gloved hand tiredly. "Now go, Jenna."

"Er, okay..." The woman turned to leave, and the bird finally broke free. Jenna watched it chirp happily for a moment, then she blurted, "Were you the one singing?"

"No, it was the bird," and for a moment, Jenna thought she was serious, as her voice wasn't airy or sarcastic. "Yes, it was me, Jenna."

"Oh... I... see." Jenna looked around hopelessly for a moment, trying to find clues to unravel this woman's identity. "Um, so you did know about that bird stuck in your – "

"Yes, I did. Pesky little thing. And I know you don't like it, Jenna, but return to your home now. I'll be seeing you in a while, right?"

"Yeah..." And the woman left, disappearing into the tunnel she had been standing in front of.

Jenna thought a moment, then turned and walked into the tunnel opposite of the one the woman had disappeared into. After some turns and considerations to double back, Jenna found herself back in the sunny rays of Weyardian sun, next to the waterfall. As she walked out, the door slid back the way it had opened for her. Then, with a sigh, she decided to return home, mentally steeling herself for any sudden glaring smiles or scorching fireballs that may be thrown her way.

"JENNA!" Someone screamed. Jenna turned around quickly, searching for the voice.

"Sheba?" She blinked, seeing the short blonde running up to her, tearing up grass and flowers as she went.

"You can't trust her!" Sheba yelled, eyes wide with terror. "She works for Alex!"

"Alex?" Jenna stared. "...The bozo's still alive?"

"Ye – "

Behind Jenna, Mt. Aleph exploded.

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER FIVE**

x x x x x

(1) – I'm sure you've noticed the Random Capitalization by now. ;) Suethors tend to have Random Capitalization everywhere... And some good authors do it, too, but I'm not sure why the hell they do. But it's pretty annoying, after some time, hmm? (I mean, when Everything's Capitalized, how Do You Know when Sentences Start and All That? I Mean, Really.)

That last part in parentheses had a joke at the end. Hopefully, you caught it, and my jetlagged mind isn't just telling me you readers are attentive enough to figure it out. Did that make sense?

(2) – Randomly and totally ripped from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, when Link has to find Saria by listening to that stupid, really headachy tune Darunia (Was it Darunia? I haven't played OoT in AGES...) likes doing his daily workout to. I hated that part.

Er... Cliffhanger? ; This chapter came out reaaal smoothly. I really appreciate it, dear computer. :Pats computer lovingly:

Isaac: omfg! waht did u do 2 hre!1?

XD I loved that part, personally. (Like Isaac would say that in the first place!)

Oh, and much love to those of you that humored me and told me that you loved Xanaeya. :)

x x x x x


	6. Complete with Obnoxious Name

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N:

Technically, Karst and Menny are dead by the end of GS2 (Sad, but true), but they're alive here. And Xanaeya and Co. exist, too. Loopholes! They come in handy! XD

x x x x x

Jenna was very, very tempted to yell out, "OMFGWE'REDOOMED!"

But she restrained herself. Meanwhile, Sheba was standing still, staring up at the mushroom cloud that had appeared in the bright blue sky.

"We're dead." Jenna said instead and sighed, pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead.

"...Ditto." Sheba mumbled.

x x x x x

Meanwhile, up at the Fortress of Evil and Gloomy Things...

I mean, Alex's Headquarters...

Alex's Most Evil (Please don't hurt me) cat yowled as the ground lurched beneath them. Alex gripped the armrests of his chair, glaring up at the ceiling as though this sudden massive-shaking-of-Weyard was _its_ fault. (And Alex personally though it was. Blame everyone and everything but him. He was too pretty.)

"I didn't mean to do that!" He told his kitty, who had scampered behind the throne in fright. "Besides, I can reverse it quite easily..."

The cat gave him a look that, were it translated into words, would say, "Yeah, _right_, pretty boy."

Alex rolled his eyes and held his hand out, summoning the power of the Golden Sun to him.

x x x x x

Despite Alex's Almighty Power, the rumbling continued. In fact, it grew so fierce that Jenna and Sheba fell to the ground, and were unable to get up. (_Totally cliché earthquake!_ huffed the cynical mind.)

"If this is Isaac's fault, I'm _so_ going to hang him with Xanaeya's hair!" Jenna yelled angrily, clutching to the grass with both hands.

"Who?" Sheba called back, being thrown around quite easily due to her small size. It must suck for her, what with her ties to Jupiter and all, Jenna thought.

"She's – " Jenna started, but the rumbling abruptly stopped. "...That was..."

"Weird..." Sheba finished for her, cautiously rising to her feet.

"Er..." Jenna was at a loss for words. Sheba seemed to be thinking the same for herself. But it was all rather suspicious...

There was a loud, high, feminine scream in the distance, and the two girls looked around wildly, trying to search it out. Experience had told them that if something screamed really loudly and shrilly, it was a good idea to find out where it was coming from, and duck. (Neither Garet nor Ivan ever recovered fully from the incident involving a raccoon stuck in an old boot.)

Something suddenly crashed into the ground at their feet so powerfully that even more soil, grass, and flowers were torn up than Sheba had managed to unearth earlier.

"...What?" Sheba and Jenna blinked as a girl, more or less their same age, slowly pulled herself up to her hands and knees. "Where...am I?"

Jenna couldn't restrain herself this time. "RUN FOR THE HILLS!" she yelled, turning on her heel and sprinting as fast as she could toward her home. After a moment of hesitance, Sheba followed as well, her Jupiter Adept-ness allowing her to easily catch up with the Mars Adept. That left the strange, teenaged girl where she had fallen.

"Where _am_ I?" The girl asked herself, looking around. (She had apparently completely missed Jenna and Sheba's rather raucous departure. (1) "This is..." she glanced down at the ground, then blinked, noticing something. Heavy gold and silver rings were on her fingers, and several gold bangles and beaded bracelets adorned her arms. "Huh?" And then she noticed she was in completely different clothes than when she had been... "Oh _crap_."

Meanwhile, with Jenna and Sheba, who were still running in sheer, but reasonable, terror...

"Jenna! Stop!" Sheba yelled to the taller girl, her steps beginning to slow. She herself could run further and faster than the average person, being an Adept and a Jupiter one at that, but this was ridiculous! They had to have circled Vale at _least_ twice by now... "Jenna!"

The Mars Adept promptly collapsed.

Well, no, that wasn't correct. As Sheba picked up her pace to help her fallen friend, she felt her toe catch on something, and nearly fell as well, but managed to spin her arms fast enough to regain her balance. Looking down at what Jenna had tripped over and what she nearly had fallen over herself, she found it was some sort of craggy white crystal...

"Urgh..." Jenna groaned, from beside her. Sheba turned her attention to her. "This is _so_ not my...my...ugh..."

Sheba was silent, unsure as of how to answer. Her curiosity was piqued by that weird girl who had fallen out of the sky like a meteor and hit the ground and wasn't a broken, bloody mess. Sheba had fallen out of the sky, too, but definitely not quite like... _that_. And what was up with this rock? Sheba peered down at it.

"There's so many of them..." The redheaded Mars Adept said into her arms, which she had moved under her head. "They won't stop _coming_..."

"Huh?" She glanced up from the rock.

"Don't tell me you don't have perfect, pretty, intelligent, heart-stealing and mind-ensnaring girls running around Tolbi..."

"Perfect, pretty, intelligent, heart-stealing and mind-ensnaring?" Sheba repeated, her expression that of someone who had been giving a word problem with no details in it whatsoever. "Do you mean the harlots?"

"No! ...Though they might as well be..." Jenna sighed.

"Perfect, pretty..." Sheba ran the synonyms through her head again. "...No, there aren't any girls like that..."

Jenna muttered an obscenity into her pillowed arms, then grumbled to Sheba, "That isn't fair. Why does Vale get all of 'em, then?"

"Because Vale has more..." Sheba stopped to consider her words. Then she said, "...possible beginnings?"

Her companion gave a groan and pulled herself up to her knees. "Let's not go there, Sheba. That girl – "

"The one working for Alex?" Green eyes narrowed. "You shouldn't trust her, Jenna..."

"Well..." Jenna thought for a moment. Sheba had a point... But then... How did she even _know_ about her? "Getting rid of these _things_ require a load of chances, Sheba. For all you know, she might have... defected."

"From Alex's Mighty Evil Ranks? Yeah, right."

"...I can _hear_ your capitals. It's scary."

One blonde eyebrow rose.. Jenna sighed, then got to her feet. "...Let's go back, Sheba."

As they went, Sheba asked, "What do you mean, capitals?"

"It's nothing. Never mind."

x x x x x

"Jenna, you're back!" was the first thing Jenna heard when she opened the door. Marie practically threw herself at the teenager, her eyes sparkling with happiness and her smile beaming brighter than the sun's rays.

"Uh, hi," Jenna said, forcing herself to not raise a hand and shield her eyes against the sunniness.

"Xanaeya's awake! She's asking for you!"

_Great!_ Jenna's omnipresent cynical mind said exasperatedly. _She's _awake_, and she still thinks you're her best friend!_

"Where is she?" Jenna asked, looking past Marie's shoulder and seeing no girl in strange yellow garb with golden hair on the couch. (_Say, how does that girl sneak around in bright yellow clothing anyways?_ the cynical mind asked, raising an eyebrow.)

"I moved her to your room, I thought she'd be more comfortable there." Marie said, hands clasped in front of her. Jenna blinked. "You don't mind, right?"

Wonderful. Now where do I get to sleep? Jenna thought sourly to herself. Instead of asking, she said to Marie, "Uh... Of course I don't! Ehm, I'll go see her now..." Jenna took a step to Marie's right, wanting to go relieve her eyes.

"Oh, who's this?" She stopped at hearing Marie's question. Of course she'd ask who Sheba was...

"Another friend. She... dropped by for a visit. She's from Tolbi." Jenna said, thinking quickly. Not much to do in Tolbi nowadays. Nothing really spectacular over there... And it would've been bad to say that she came from Lavilero, since Marie probably had more non-existent relatives over there, too. "Her name's Sheba."

"Sheba? What a nice name!" Marie squealed, walking over to the blonde. Sheba blinked at her.

"Um, thank you?" Sheba tried. Fortunately, it only made Marie all the happier. (Or was that a bad thing?) "And you're..."

"Marie. Marie Elouise Lorelei Theresa Jeanette Ilona Hope Fionulla Rowena Serena Katherine Audunell the second. (2)" She recited, ticking off the names on her fingers. Jenna stared at her, jaw hanging open, and Sheba's eyebrows had disappeared into her bangs.

"...Uh..." Sheba said, eyebrows yet to return to their normal position. "...You're...a princess, aren't you?"

"How do you know?" Marie asked, her expression that of excessively cute perplexity rather than bright, cheery happiness for once. (_Thank Sol for little mercies_, went the cynical mind.)

"Um, nobody I know has a name that long..." She said blankly.

"Really? Well, they probably aren't royalty – "

"That's nice and all, Marie, we'll be going now!" Jenna said, suddenly jerking back to life. She grabbed Sheba's wrist and yanked her along as she walked to her room. Marie, who was not deterred in the slightest, gave them both a beaming smile (Though neither of them saw it, having their backs turned to her), then went back into the kitchen.

"_Mars_," Jenna hissed, as she stomped over to her room. "So she did have a fancy-pancy princess name to go with her non-existent tiara!"

"Fionulla..." Sheba muttered to herself. "Fionulla..."

"Yeah, Fionulla," Jenna snarled, stopping abruptly outside of her room. Sheba bumped into her, and took a step quickly back, as though fearing she'd be backhanded. Jenna was unhappy enough as it was... "My _arse_, Fionulla."

Sheba blinked, surprised that she hadn't gotten backhanded after all.

Jenna kept herself from throwing the door open, but it wouldn't have mattered if she had anyway; Xanaeya was awake and sitting up in bed, reading one of Jenna's novels. As soon as the door opened, she set down the book and gave them a small smile.

"Hello, Jenna."

"Hey, Xanaeya," Jenna replied, pulling the chair from her desk out and sitting in it. Sheba followed her, trying to stare at Xanaeya without being noticed.

"Your friend..." Xanaeya said, looking at Sheba with now-pale green eyes.

"Her name is – "

"Sheba," Xanaeya said, cutting off Jenna. Jenna fishmouthed a second time. Sheba stared, her fear of getting hit with some sort of strange holy power or other forgotten.

"Do I want to know how you know my name without ever having met me in the past?" Sheba asked, suspicion obvious in her voice. Xanaeya laughed softly, brushing a strand of goldeny yellow hair behind her ear.

"You're quite famous, you know." The Saturn Adept told her, fingering a corner of the blanket.

"Oh?" Jenna noticed that Sheba's eyebrows were _awfully_ bouncy today... "Famous? For being one of the eight famous Golden Adepts?"

"Aside from that, you're a remarkably bright young girl. I haven't heard of anybody as intelligent as you in a while."

"Don't try to flatter me, Ms. Xanaeya." Sheba's green eyes narrowed, glaring at Xanaeya's, which were steadily becoming a sort of aqua-ish color. "Most people don't thrive on it."

Xanaeya raised her own eyebrows, but she seemed more amused than offended. "Is that so? The Elders would have wanted to met you... But, sadly, they're gone. You would have pleased them with your intellect and...stubbornness."

Sheba blinked, thrown off by her strange comment. "Elders?"

"She's a Saturn Adept," Jenna butt in, before Xanaeya could bore their ears off with her angst-ridden past, and how she was enslaved and yadda yadda. (And at this point, just saying "She's a Saturn Adept" could really answer any question.)

"I am – was – an assassin. Isaac has taught me differently, though... There's more to this world than mindless bloodshed and vengeance. There are love, dreams, hopes, and our future..."

"Say, Xanaeya," Jenna said, one of her own eyebrows twitching violently. "What did you want to speak with me about?"

"Jenna... Would you like to see my old home?" Xanaeya asked, leaning forward slightly. Some gold hair slipped out from behind her ear. "In the forest nearby."

"Your old home?" Jenna blinked. She glanced at Sheba, who looked as though she were still puzzling about the existence of Saturn Adepts (as well as the name 'Fionulla').

"Yes... It's very beautiful, made in a large, enchanted tree." Xanaeya smiled fondly. "My parents had always told me I was skilled with my hands... Art, penmanship, woodcarving, swordsmanship..."

If Jenna had gagged, she expertly disguised it into a cough. Sheba slapped her on the back for good measure, though.

"Well, I..." Jenna caught Sheba staring at her out of the corner of her green eyes. "...I'd love to go sometime!" She said in a fake-uber happy voice she hoped sounded mildly like Marie's very-enthused own.

"Really, would you? You're the first person, aside from Isaac, who's seen it! I'm sure you'll like it," Xanaeya gushed, sounding more like a teenybopper schoolgirl rather than some cold-blooded assassin she claimed to be. "We'll go as soon as possible."

"And when is that?" Jenna asked warily.

"Ohhh... Now?" Xanaeya threw the covers off, swinging her legs off the bed. Jenna and Sheba stared.

"You're... not weak or anything?"

"No, not at all. Not only is Marie's soup very potent, but my body heals very rapidly." The assassin said in one of her informative tones. Jenna winced.

"I see... Uh, where's Isaac?"

"I sent him ahead to the tree, because I knew you'd accept."

_So she's telepathic, too? What a LIAR! She isn't a Saturn Adept! She's a Jupiter Adept in disguise! _screamed the cynical mind. Jenna had to agree, for once.

"Right. You get your stuff... Um, Sheba, why don't you come with me?" Not bothering with an answer, Jenna grabbed Sheba's wrist and forcefully dragged her out of the room as Xanaeya stood. "We'll meet you at the door..." Dare she chance it? "...'aeya!"

Xanaeya only beamed (in an eerily Marie-esque way) back at her.

Grimacing to herself as she tugged Sheba along the hallway, she wondered if she should tell Karst. Karst would probably say...

"What do you _mean_ you're going to her _home_? Are you _nuts_? That's where she keeps her harem, right? How d'you know she doesn't have some sort of _dungeons_ for her 'best friends,' too?"

_...Something like that,_ nodded Jenna's cynical mind. She sighed.

After telling Marie where they would be going and getting a fresh batch of cookies for the short trip, the three girls began the trek out of Vale to Xanaeya's home.

Then they were ambushed.

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER SIX**

x x x x x

(1) – Notice how Sues tend to completely ignore certain things? Ugh. Or a character says something derogatory about another character, who so happens to be Ms. Sue's OMG-one-twu-wuv, and then the Sue backhands that "traitor" for saying bad stuff about her luv. (And she's never present when the character said that to begin with!)

(2) – Princesses must have princess-y names! All those names exist; they were ripped painfully from a baby name book from the eighties. And for those wishing to see more Azu!genius, Marie's last name is just a spiffed-up version of the boy name Audun, which means deserted/desolate/lonely. And Marie is orphaned, thus...

"'aeya" is pronounced 'aya,' like the guy from Weiss Kruez. I think it was Weiss Kruez. I dunno if that's how it's even pronounced (the name). Erm, if I'm wrong, it's the same as that exclamation Chinese parents like to abuse.

And as for the last sentence of the chapter?

All Sue stories end with a stupid, wannabe-cliffhanger sentence like that, duh. :P

Any further recommendations for Sues/Stus or weird plotholes are welcome with open arms. (Even Azu has to run out of ideas sometime.) And yes, a snappy goth Sue will be added sometime. As for that girl that fell out of the sky -- if you can't tell she's a self-insert!Sue, I'm going to spork you now.

x x x x x


	7. Enter the Elf

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N: ARGH I need to update a whole boatload of junk. Why do people keep on reviewing my fics near the bottom of my page? They... SUCK, you know. If I had a chance, I'd revise them, but considering I've long since deleted the stories off my writing computer, um...

Enough of my ramblings, enjoy the chapter. Even though it's so utterly cliché and horrible and... Wait! It's supposed to be like that! Too bad, so sad. (Azu's getting bad at sarcasm lately.)

x x x x x

What could Jenna possibly say?

It was an _ambush_, for Mars's sake. And a really badly pulled off one, too.

Because Xanaeya was an assassin, and assassins were trained in having greased lightning-fast reflexes. Thus, the two men who had stormed at them were neatly cut in two at the waist, creating a glorious shower of crimson blood. (1)

Xanaeya calmly sheathed her katana, flipped her bangs out of her face, and continued walking, apparently not noticing or blatantly ignoring the massive blood stain covering her legs and chest.

Sheba and Jenna simply stared. (You can't blame the poor girls.)

"Xa... Xanaeya?" Jenna called hesitantly. The blonde woman stopped and looked at her over her shoulder, eyes an eerie off-white color. "What... happened?"

"We were ambushed," Xanaeya said. (_As though _that _wasn't obvious already_, Jenna's cynical mind muttered.) "By men who have hunted my clan since nearly the beginning of time."

"Hunting your clan? What for?" Sheba asked, suspicious.

"I'm not sure what for..." _One of the first things she _didn't_ know off the top of her head,_ Jenna thought.

"The Elders have never told us the reason of their hatred, except it runs deep in their blood. Supposedly, they are demons, plagued to haunt us for a sin we have committed long, long ago, but... That is only what my mother has told me."

"A sin?" Jenna blinked. _Oh sure!_ the cynical mind drawled. _She's from that clan, right? The gods knew she was gonna come from there, so they've been hunted as a sin for her eventual existence!_ Ouch.

"It deals with betrayal, broken promises, shattered friendships, and war. Not the most pleasant of sins." Xanaeya answered, her eyes slowly returning to a normal green. (Although, seeing them transition from off-white to pale green was rather... nauseating.)

"Er, well..." Jenna turned to look back at the corpses, and was surprised to find that they were no longer there. "They disappeared?"

"As demons, their corpses disappear once they have been killed." Xanaeya sighed and looked up at the blue sky mournfully. "Just like my father's..."

Jenna stared, eyes wide. Sheba gaped openly. You could just _feel_ the drama.

"Your father was a demon?" Well, it seemed obvious enough, but Jenna had to ask anyways.

"Well, that explains a lot," Sheba muttered, recovering quickly. Jenna managed to stomp on her toe in a very subtle fashion. Xanaeya sighed dramatically.

"Yes, he was a demon. He raped my mother, and I was the result of their relationship. (2) I believe my demon heritage may be the reason why Alex decided to let me live -- demon blood is very powerful, you see. But I wonder why he has no fears that I would overtake him one day..."

"He's a bonehead, that's why." Jenna said loftily, giving Sheba a steely look that read '_Slip up and she'll murder you_.' Sheba, however, didn't know whether Jenna was referring to herself or to Xanaeya. Whatever, the threat was still there. Xanaeya gave her a small, vaguely appreciative smile. "Um, if there aren't any other problems, why don't we resume our...um...trek?"

"Let's." Xanaeya's smile was genuine, as far as Jenna could tell. Sheba personally thought differently, but then, Sheba was smart enough to keep her mouth shut to avoid being decked and/or mercilessly gorged by Jenna.

They walked for several more minutes before they reached the edge of the small triangular forest outside of Vale. When Jenna scanned the tops of the trees, she saw no particularly large tree that stood above the rest. Rather, they all looked the same. With a deep feeling of doubt, she and Sheba followed Xanaeya into the fringes of the trees, which looked plenty more mystical than it did the last time Jenna's mother had sent her out to look for herbs.

Indeed, the forest did look a lot more...shiny than it did last Jenna had seen it. Once, Sheba stopped to peer at a floating orb of bluish light, and was about to poke it with a stick she'd picked up from the ground when Jenna grabbed her elbow and dragged her along. Xanaeya had also apparently managed to either scare away the few beasts that lurked in the forest, or make them her pets. While they walked, birds chirped (Jenna kept an eye out for one with an oddly shaped crest), squirrels ran amok the tree branches, and deer occasionally stared out at them shyly from behind the trunks of trees.

Jenna was all ready missing her old little patch of woods, and there hadn't been much lovable about it.

"Here we are." Xanaeya said, stopping suddenly in front of a huge tree. Jenna and Sheba -- as were expected of them – stared up at it in awe.

_How did I _miss_ something of this size all these years?_ Jenna asked herself, eyebrows furrowed in perplexity, staring up at the tree's branches, which seemed to cling to the sky.

Meanwhile, Sheba was thinking, _What kind of fertilizer did they have to use to make something this large? There's no _way_ it can be natural! Super Deluxe Chicken? Or was it horse?_

A window about halfway up the tree was thrown open suddenly, and Isaac stuck his head out, waving enthusiastically down to the trio of women down at the bottom. "xaneayaaaaa!111!1"

"Come on, let's go in!" the Saturn Adept said, beckoning to them as she walked to the large front door. Sheba made a nervous sound, while Jenna looked as though she doubted her sanity (which she was doing quite often, by the way) for ever agreeing to come to this wretched place.

Only once Xanaeya had disappeared into the tree's entrance did Jenna make up her mind to give herself a good whack over the head sometime later and follow the blonde woman, dragging the protesting Sheba along in a punishing grip.

The entrance room had a moderately sized set of stairs in the middle of it, complete with a polished railing and red ribbons. Jenna and Sheba followed a little bit behind Xanaeya, who walked up the stairs in a way that could only be described as full of ease.

And this was the uptight assassin that had been sent to kill Isaac just a few days ago. Jenna stifled a sigh, releasing Sheba, knowing her well enough that she wouldn't bolt, despite being in the natural environment of the Enemy.

What Jenna had expected to be just a tree full of various levels with loads of staircases turned out to be a fashionably decorated, architecturally jaw-dropping marvel, with a surprisingly homey feel to it. The first room had a beautifully carved stone fireplace in one wall. On the (very) far side of the room was a black stove next to a wooden counter, which ran along the wall (which was not curved, as Jenna had anticipated, but rather, very straight). Off to the side was an elegant spiral staircase, which Isaac was rushing down at the moment, launching himself at the blonde assassin.

"xanaeya i missd u soooo0o0o0o0o0o0o muhc!111'" (3)

"I missed you too, dear." She said to him gently, smoothing some of his spiky strands of hair in vain.

"How long were they apart? An hour at most?" Sheba asked to Jenna in a whisper. Jenna gave her the Toe Stomp of Doom again, effectively cutting off any other snarky questions and/or comments from her.

"Well, this is my home," Xanaeya said, turning to face the two girls. "Feel free to explore. I'll make some more cookies and things. Isaac, you'll help, right?" She gave him a sickly sweet smile, and he nodded fervently. She raised her amber eyes to them, and beckoned with a free hand. "Go on."

Though looking hesitant, Jenna took Sheba's arm (again; Sheba was starting to protest more out of fear of losing her arm than being attacked by pixies) and dragged her (as usual) up the spiral staircase.

"I think I'm really disturbed that a psycho demon-angel-thing-assassin's making cookies with her 'beloved'." Sheba said as soon as they were on the second floor. Jenna glared at her for a moment, before the words sunk in.

"...Yeah, I don't blame you." Jenna said with a deep sigh, gazing around the room.

It was a comfortable sort of library-like room, every wall crammed with bookcases that reached floor to ceiling, each shelf jammed with books big and small, old and new, with leather covers, paper covers, and occasionally even a velvet one. (_Velvet?_ the cynical mind said with a raised eyebrow. _Do I want to know_?)

"The Book of Dullahan..." Sheba read, going over to a bookcase and running her fingers across the spines. "The Mythology of Weyard... Dark Magic: The Tomegathericon, Parallel Worlds: Hyrule and Midgar...(4) What _is_ all this?"

"Books, looks like." Jenna said to her dully, pulling out one of those strange velvet-covered tomes and opening it, leafing through the pages. Raising an eyebrow, she read from a page, "_'If you ever happen to meet your true soulmate, your mind will realize it instantly, although you, yourself, may not. Your hands may sweat, your heart will pound, and you might find yourself stammering in front of them...' _No wonder this book is covered with velvet."

"I don't think I want to know, much less ask, why she has that." Sheba said with one of those 'please save me' looks on her young face. She turned her green eyes back to the bookcase. "I wonder how she obtained all these books, though...?"

"You may not know it, but Xanaeya is quite the avid reader." A silky voice said from behind them. Both girls whipped around. Sitting on a large gilded chest was a pale girl with silver-blonde hair that was so long it pooled at her feet. Her eyes were a startling crimson color, and her elegantly arched eyebrows only added to their strange beauty. She was dressed in a royal mage's garb, and on her lap lay a curved wooden staff. (5) "She's read nearly every book in the royal library, in fact."

"Who are you?" Jenna could tell by the prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck that this was another one of _them_, but she didn't dare say it aloud. The woman smiled at her thinly.

"My name is Airetaliel." (6)

"Um, what?" Jenna blinked. _Way to go with first impressions!_ muttered the cynical mind.

"I am...a friend of Xanaeya's." She said, cocking her head to one side, observing them. Jenna resisted the urge to bolt for the door.

"Are you an...elf?" Sheba inquired of her slowly, taking note of her slender, pointed ears.

"Elf?" Jenna asked blankly. There weren't any such things in Weyard, were there? (Even though there were chimeras and headless guardians and giant sea monsters...) "They...don't exist."

"But I am an elf, so they do exist." The woman stood in one fluid motion, her staff held in one hand. "I am from the forests of the far north."

"The north... Imil? Prox?" Sheba continued to ask, and Jenna didn't know why. She personally didn't want to do anything with this... ethereal-but-nonetheless-downright-creepy-_thing_. Or, maybe Sheba was being a dutiful... uh, sidekick, and was researching on the enemy? It was a long shot, but anything was possible.

"I have never heard of those places, but near where I was born, there was a... oh, what do you people call it? Oh, yes, a lighthouse."

"Well, that doesn't help much..." Sheba muttered, an eyebrow raised. "Was it red or blue?"

"It was blue."

"Imil." Sheba said with a nod to Jenna. "Where Mia comes from. That explains why she's so pale."

"Um, excuse me for a moment..." Jenna grabbed Sheba's arm and dragged her to the corner, watching Aire-whatsit out of the corner of the corner of her eye the entire time. "Sheba, why do you care so much about her?"

"Well, it's – "

"Your friend is only curious. She is a scholarly one, is she not?" Airetaliel said coolly, watching them with her frightening eyes without blinking at all. "Are you suspicious of me?"

_Yeah, Jenna,_ the cynical mind muttered, _there's no reason to be scared of some elf with superhearing and omnipotency._

"Er... There've never been elves seen before, so it's only natural of her to be a bit cautious." Sheba interrupted Jenna's garbled reply sheepishly. "I'm, um, sorry if it offends you."

"Not at all." Airetaliel said with a most gracious tone. "Now, shall we go on to the upper levels? I can show you around."

"That'd be nice." Jenna mumbled quickly before Sheba could answer for her again. Being cut off so often made her look and feel stupid. Giving Sheba a discreet slap to the back of the head, the two girls followed the elven lady out to the spiral staircase.

x x x x x

Meanwhile, back in Vale...

"_OMIGOD!_ You're Karst!"

Karst halted in her daily walk. Mind you, Karst did not walk daily for health reasons or to observe the scenery and/or people – she walked to give herself an excuse to get away from Marie and think of new plots to usurp the power from these creatures. She turned around to see a peculiar looking girl who looked out of place amongst the Valeans, due to her strange mage's robes and heavy metal jewelry. But that gut feeling told her that this was, indeed, one of them. "Who are you?"

"Oh my... You're _KARST!_ I thought you were dead!" The girl stared at her, jaw slack. Karst hoped she wasn't staring back, it'd look awfully stupid.

"...Um, no." Karst raised an eyebrow. The mage had deep purple hair which glimmered in the sun, and sparkling blue eyes. (_Geez,_ she thought, _this girl just... sparkles_.) "Who are you?" she asked again.

"Oh, my name's Katelyn, but call me whatever you want!"

Karst's eyes narrowed. She could think of _plenty_ of names to call her, but most would probably make the atmosphere deteriorate due to their utter foulness. "Well, then, _Katelyn_, where are you from?"

"I... I, well... I'm not from Weyard."

Oh, no.

"I'm from a place called Earth..."

Double no.

"And, um, you might not get this, but over there, there's this game called Golden Sun... Well, there are two games, the first and then the sequel. But, see, the thing is, the game, it follows this... uh, story. You know, the first game follows Isaac, and how he sets out to retrieve the Elemental Stars, and get back Jenna and Kraden..."

Good gods, how long could this girl ramble? Karst allowed herself to stare.

"...and then in the second game... Felix... Wow, is he hot or what? ...Then you go to... Sail around... Elemental rocks..."

Karst could tell she was going to doze off soon, and continuously pinched herself on the arm behind her back to keep herself awake.

"And guess what? I have Psynergy! Isn't that, so, like, cool? I can make tornadoes happen! You could _so_ never do that from where I come from! You'd be, like, God, if you could do this back at Earth! Isn't that awesome? ...Hey, Karst? ...Karst?"

Karst gave her head a little shake and blinked rapidly, hoping she hadn't fallen asleep for too long. "What?"

Katelyn was looking at her strangely. "Hey, Karst, do you want to be friends?"

Karst twitched. "_No_," she said vehemently, turning on her heel and walking away at a very fast pace.

"W-wait! Can't we talk this out or something? We'd be great friends, you know? I like fashion and jewelry and... oh, boys! Yeah, boys... Do you know where Felix is? Oooh, I want to meet him _so_ badly...!"

"I don't know where he is." Karst answered flatly, speeding up her strides further. "And I wish you'd leave me alone."

"...Y-you don't like me?"

Karst turned around, noticing there weren't any footsteps following her. Katelyn stood some ways away, head bowed towards the ground, hands clenched at her sides.

"Whatever makes you think I ever did?" Yes, it was a nasty slap in the face, but Karst was always like that. You had to get used to her fast or face the consequences.

"I just fell into this world because of some freak accident..." Katelyn said quietly. _Not the tears,_ Karst thought exasperatedly to herself. "And then, when I come here and meet you, you're not being helpful at all, and... and... _WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO MEAN TO ME?_"

Before she knew what was happening, Karst was lifted off her feet and thrown backwards to the ground. It hurt, but then, Proxian warriors could handle plenty more than that. Readying her scythe, Karst got to her feet, eyes narrowed and mouth set in a grim smile. Show this brat to bother her again.

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER SEVEN**

x x x x x

(1) – Cliché blood color and cliché killing! This one's for you, Mango. :D

(2) – Oh, the wangst! Always present in some shape or form in storylines. The character that was the result of a rape. Sigh. Get over it, okay? Rape isn't a good thing, but it's so OVERUSED no wonder it's... yeah.

(3) – I hate people wHo HaVe To CaPiTaLiZe EvErY oThEr LeTtEr, or use zeros. Also, the apostrophe-quote mistake at the end is another one of those usual errors. Shift and key, Suethor, not KeyShiftControlSpaceTab, like you may think it to be.

(4) – I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.

(5) – ...I think I've used that sort of description before. In pieces. So I just assembled it, and you get that monstrous block of descriptive text.

(6) – Her name came from an Elven name generator. I don't recall what I put in to get it, but...now you know. Even _I'm_ not that creative. (Creative? Another Sue-bashing fic after thousands have already been posted on the net? Pssh.)

...Erm, I'm sorry it's a rather short chapter. I'm trying to make them longer, I promise, but there's only so much you can put that's awfully Sueish in a chapter... I just get sick of writing this, sometimes, to be honest. (But wouldn't you, too?)

I'm sorry if your name's Katelyn. My sincerest apologies.

Expect a Sue to die sometime relatively soon.

As in, next chapter.

(Something to look forward to!)

x x x x x


	8. Sidekick Abuse

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N: Meep.

I am going to flee now. For the hills.

x x x x x

Airetaliel lead them around the rest of the rooms like a tour guide in a museum – always talking softly, stepping lightly, and answering any questions with a dignified, though flat, voice. Jenna was cringing most of the time she spoke when she wasn't looking. Sheba looked beyond bored. However, the small blonde kept on her toes, and whenever the elf...thing...asked a question of them, she answered promptly. Airetaliel looked mildly pleased whenever she did so.

"Just how many levels does this thing have?" Jenna asked to neither of her companions in particular. She glanced around the room they were in now – the "magic" room, supposedly – and suppressed a shiver. She really didn't want to know what kind of things Xanaeya had pickling in here... One of those round things sitting in a jar of murky...liquidy...stuff...looked like it was staring at her.

"We are on the fifth level. This tree has seven levels total, the top of which is the uppermost branches of the tree." Airetaliel answered promptly, smoothing out a fold in her dress as she sat on a plush chair nearby, fingering her staff. "Tiring, isn't it?"

"Very." Sheba replied for Jenna, who was trying to discreetly step away from the blobby thing that she thought was glaring at her. The blonde gently touched Jenna's arm, and the redhead jumped, looking (and squeaking) like a cornered mouse. "Jenna, dear, there's nothing in here that can hurt you. Badly, anyways."

Jenna shot her a glare – not one of those fear-inducing-heart-going-meep! glares, but it was enough to make Sheba giggle nervously, and Sheba rarely giggled nervously as it was. Airetaliel watched their exchange with a neutral expression. "Let's go to the next room." She said stiffly, stomping out of the room with a very fast stride. Sheba glanced at Airetaliel, but the elf had already turned and walked out after her. Sheba cast one last glance around the room (Though creepy, it was all rather intriguing) and followed the two out.

The sixth floor was the master bedroom, a nicely furnished room with a king-sized bed with goosedown pillows (supposedly; neither Jenna nor Sheba had bothered to squish them to see if this was true). In one corner was another bathroom (Just how did plumbing work in this place? both of the girls were wondering), and on the other side of the room was a balcony. Sheba, who was mildly fearful of heights (falling off a lighthouse could do that to you), saw no reason for a balcony to have been put there, but did not voice her comments. She had the feeling Airetaliel knew, though. (1)

The last room was the observatory. It was nestled between a fork in a very large branch – they had to cross over the branch itself to get to it. (Sheba was shrieking all along the pathway.) Upon reaching this final room, Jenna decided that 'observatory' was just a fancy name – it was merely a room with completely glass walls, and a glass dome ceiling. There was a balcony encircling the entire area, but when Airetaliel offered to open up a door to that area, Sheba promptly refused to go, and latched herself onto Jenna's arm. Jenna, anchored down by the blonde, politely refused.

As Sheba was warily glancing around the room and continuing to cut of Jenna's blood circulation, a bell in the corner tinkled, and Airetaliel turned to the two teenage girls, smiling. "Xanaeya has finished with the treats. Let's go back, shall we?"

"Do we have to?" Sheba asked, looking far more pitiful than usual.

Jenna sighed loudly, casting a glare in her direction. "You wanna stay here, Sheba?"

"No!" And Sheba promptly let go of her and ran out, screeching the entire way.

Airetaliel gave Jenna one of those curious half-smiles that never failed to make you wonder what they were thinking, then swept out of the room after Sheba. Jenna snorted and followed, arms crossed over her chest. Weirdoes, the lot of them.

Jenna caught up to the height-fearing blonde and creepy elf back at the main floor. Said blonde was indulging in some cookies, which immediately alarmed Jenna – what the heck was she doing eating Xanaeya's _cookies_? "SHEBA!"

"Mmrf?" Sheba looked up, blinking.

Jenna found herself at a very decisive moment – save Sheba's life by making her cough up the cookies, or get her and Sheba both beheaded for offending Xanaeya. What could she do? Let Sheba die, or get themselves both killed? Well, if Sheba died, she'd just be less one (Though useful) sidekick, but if they both died... That'd be the end of the Removal-of-all-Girls-Deemed-Evil journey they had suddenly found themselves on.

By the time she came to her decision, Sheba was staring expectantly up at her, no longer chewing.

"AAAAAGHHH!" Jenna screamed, her fists clenched in sheer terror, eyes wide as saucers. "SHEBA!"

"Jenna? Is there anything wrong?" Xanaeya asked, coming into the room, a fresh batch of cookies in her hands.

"SHEBA'S GOING TO – oh...well. Um, no, not really. Not at all! I'm sorry, I must be...um...seeing things... Yes, that's it..."

"Are your eyes going bad?" Xanaeya frowned, setting the cookies down before Sheba on the table. "I have a balm for that, if you're seeing kind of blurry..."

"No! No, no, no, that's fine. I'm fine. Just a little... Yeeeah." Jenna awkwardly sat herself down on a plush, overstuffed chair, blinking bemusedly at the ground. Xanaeya didn't seem too bothered with this or chose to ignore her peculiar behavior and went back into the kitchen, humming to herself cheerfully.

"Jenna? Jenna. Jenna!" Sheba's first attempts at rousing Jenna out of her fear-induced state went unnoticed, however, giving her a good whack on the head pulled her out rather quickly.

"Ow! Why did'ja do that?" Jenna scowled at her, clutching at the side of her head. "I thought I had enough dents in my head from the times you miscalculated your practice swings and gave me concussions..."

"That was a long time ago!" Sheba said defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. "I had no idea what the difference between an axe and a rapier was back then! Now I can whup anything that's stupid enough to cross my path!"

"Including Garet." Jenna muttered, giving the cookies a suspicious side-long glance. _Head is saying no. Stomach is saying pleeeease._

"Garet doesn't know left from right, woman on her monthly or woman not on her monthly." Sheba frowned, eyebrows furrowed for a moment. Then she blinked up at her. "Are you feeling something a little..." She leaned forward, glancing left and right for eavesdroppers. "..._off_?"

Jenna stared down at her as though she had suddenly grown horns and was declaring that a world crisis was bad fashion. (That was Jenna's belief, truth be told. Some people needed to be _told_ what they were doing wrong.) "Actually...yeah."

"I don't mean the cookies." Sheba hissed, eyes narrowed in more than just mild frustration.

"Oh." Jenna thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, yeah, either way..."

Sheba rolled her eyes and sighed. Jenna stuck her tongue out at her, then kicked her in the shin for good measure. (And besides, kicking Sheba around had always been fun. Take that any way you want...)

"I meant... just... this environment. It's just... too quiet... You know?" Sheba tried, hoping this time she'd make it past Jenna's "OMG teh cookies are teh 3b1L!11!"-idea. (2)

"...I guess..." Jenna said boredly, kicking her feet back and forth. "I mean, Isaac's not squealing or anything, that's...new..."

Sheba muttered something to herself as if on a cue, there was a loud, almost girlish scream from the kitchen.

I should keep my mouth shut more often, Jenna noted mentally to herself as Isaac's screech grated on her already-abused-well-enough eardrums. Beside her, she heard a soft 'whumpf' noise, and looking over, saw Sheba slumped against the arm of her chair, apparently unconscious.

(leik omgz.)

x x x x x

Karst smirked, despite being rather bruised and cut up more than she had been before this impromptu battle. The girl, being powerful with her wind magic, was very clumsy with the short sword she wielded, often slashing at air as Karst dove around her and came close to splicing out her spine, but always failing. Katelyn, like the rest, probably had some special 'aura' or other that kept her from being mortally wounded... Why were the gods favoring _them_ over the rest of them? The next guy deserved a special aura as much as this brat...

Karst held out her scythe for balance as a wind blast swept over her, her dark red hair trailing behind her and eventually falling back next to her as it died away. With a grin, she taunted, "Your magic's getting weaker, if you can't tell!"

"Shut up." Katelyn growled, swinging her short sword dramatically around her as a purple circle traced itself around her feet. Karst eyed the circle somewhat warily, taking a step back but moving no further. "You Proxians, you're all the same, aren't you? All filthy, inside _and_ out..."

Karst's eyebrow twitched. As was every other Proxian, she felt a strong surge of hatred towards the brat for insulting her heritage. She must die.

"You know what?" Katelyn's voice was hoarse and nearing hysterical as jets of air encircled her. "Maybe I'll become a Proxian hunter after I kill you! Then I won't have to deal with you psychos anymore!"

...Look who's talking, Karst thought to herself in a droll tone, preparing a Pyroclasm. (3)

"_KADO NO KAZE!_" (4)

"_PYROCLASM!_"

Their attacks smashed together and exploded like fireworks on steroids, creating a huge, flaming, tornado-like windstorm around the battlefield. Karst narrowed her eyes, trying to see if she had managed to hit Katelyn, but the dust and hair whipping into her eyes kept her from doing so.

Slowly, the tornado died away, leaving an unconscious form across from her and another one between them, covered in silvery feathers. Karst blinked away the dust from her eyes and readjusted her scythe. She crept up to the closest figure and carefully leaned down to try and see who it was.

"Karst..." It wheezed.

Karst backpedaled and almost fell over, staring wide-eyed at the figure.

"Karst," it said again, and with a shudder, the person-thing pulled itself upwards, just a little bit. "Karst, promise me...something..."

Karst shuffled closer again, staring hard at the person-thing. Wait, silver feathers – it wasn't that thing from before, was it? No, that had been cleaved in half by Xanaeya (she had to admit that at the least). Some of the feathers flitted away when a particularly strong breeze rushed over the field. Coppery curls were revealed, as well as pale skin...

"Marie?" Karst asked, not sure why she was even bothering with her. But she was perturbed as of why the girl was out here to begin with...

"...Find...happiness..." Marie wheezed, reaching out to her feebly. Karst stared, unsure whether to take it or not (But her common sense telling her not to). Seconds passed, but time seemed to stretch beyond their plane of reality. (5)

Needless to say, Karst was pretty darn confused.

The hand fell and with a small ghost of a smile, Marie's eyelids fluttered shut a final time, leaving Karst with a dead angel (assuming it _was_ an angel) and an unconscious psycho.

Karst sighed and rubbed her forehead.

_I need a nap._

x x x x x

Jenna was having the spaz attack of her life.

Perhaps it wasn't _the_ spaz attack of her life, but it was pretty darned close. Sheba was unconscious after indulging in the Evil Cookies of Xanaeya-That-Witch, and, and... She would lose a valuable sidekick if Sheba died! She needed her sidekick to help her fight off these evil beings of Alex! And rescue Garet and Isaac! And Menardi! She needed Sheba's help, however much it bruised her pride to admit it!

"AAAAGGGHHH!" was all that came out instead of those frantic, distressed questions, making her sound far less intelligent than usual.

Immediately Airetaliel appeared at her side, looking as calm and serene as ever, as though totally unaware of the worrying event that had just happened. "So Sheba is unconscious..."

Jenna just screamed some more, until Airetaliel slapped a pale hand over her mouth, effectively cutting her off.

"Breathe, child," Airetaliel told her almost warningly, then let go after a moment. Jenna took quick, deep breaths, hoping she didn't look too worried. (It was always bad to show weakness in the presence of an enemy. Or so Saturos had said during their aimless wandering, anyways.) Airetaliel seemed to hum (Was it energy? There _was_ a blue tinge surrounding her) and crept near to the unconscious Sheba, as though she would jump up all of a sudden. Which wasn't likely anyways, but...

"I wonder what caused this..." Airetaliel murmured in her usual soft way, stretching out one hand towards the blonde. The tips of her fingers scratched against a purple barrier that had appeared as soon as her nail had scraped the edge. It flickered as she kept her hand where it was, her crimson eyes peering at it in a curious way. "Strange..."

Jenna was struggling with her panic bubbling up in her. _Wake up, sidekick! WAKE UP! Your help is still muchly needed in this plane of reality! _

Something occurred to her then as the majority of her brain was going PANICPANICPANIC – perhaps this was the special Psynergy barrier that was unconsciously raised in times of dire problems?

Or had Garet been lying that entire time about that time in Kolima when they'd passed out and had created these weird barriers unintentionally, and had deflected some of that weird magic from that tree? (Well, Garet certainly boasted a lot, probably to try and impress her. But Jenna doubted he'd be able to reflect anything back at anyone, even if he had been awake _and_ concentrating.) But anyway...

"Xanaeya," Airetaliel called, straightening, silvery-gold-metalsomething hair swishing around her gracefully. Jenna glared at it – why did all these girls come with such nice hair? Hers had split ends and often looked a sort of dullish brown in the sunlight... "Could you come and check on Sheba? Something's wrong with her."

_So superspecial!elf doesn't have all the answers! Ohoho!_ Jenna's ever-present cynical mind cackled, slapping nonexistent hands on nonexistent thighs. _This is rich!_

_Shut up. My sidekick's life is on the line._ Jenna replied sourly.

Soon Xanaeya came plodding out of the kitchen, eyes a sparkling, sapphire blue. (6) Isaac followed her like the lovesick puppy that he was, sometimes spouting out strange phrases that _sounded_ like poetry, but had hit something somewhere in the middle. Like, say, a large boulder. And then had promptly keeled over and died.

"Oh dear, what's wrong with her?" Xanaeya asked, looking worriedly at the unconscious wind Adept sprawled on one of her chairs.

"She's unconscious." Airetaliel stated in a calm tone.

_Duh,_ went Jenna's cynical mind with a facepalm.

_No, she's making daisy chains_. Jenna sighed.

"Let us put her in the guest suite – perhaps she's merely exhausted." Airetaliel suggested, shrugging one shoulder. "I am unable to pick her up, however... There is a barrier that keeps me from touching her."

Xanaeya reached forward towards Sheba, and Jenna fought the urge to jump in front of Sheba, to protect her from that evil...blonde...thing... Granted, Xanaeya wasn't looking very frightening, wearing a light blue apron with frilly hems, but Jenna knew from experience that angering the woman whether she was wearing her battle garb or a yellow raincoat and polka dotted rubber boots was generally not a very intelligent idea.

The Saturn Adept's hand encountered the barrier, but with a gentle push, slipped through, the Psynergetic wall surrounding her wrist and arm. Xanaeya's expression was that of pure seriousness and determination as she continued to push her arm through, never blinking. Jenna stared, somewhat horrified.

Her fingers brushed the cloth of Sheba's dress, and the purple barrier shrank back all of a sudden, disappearing with a small 'pop!' noise.

"leik zomg W0W xaneaya u totaly diid it!111" Isaac exclaimed, clapping his hands together in apparent exuberance. Jenna stared at him, unable to form any coherent thoughts.

"Thank you, Isaac." The blonde woman smiled demurely at him, then carefully picked Sheba up in her arms as though she weighed nothing more than a sackful of pillows. "Now up to the guest bedroom... Aire, if you could mix up one of your potions? Yours are a lot more potent that mine."

The Elf smiled back at her then nodded, gliding towards the kitchen in the corner. "I will, dear friend. I will see to a potion."

Jenna felt very out-of-place amongst the three, who seemed all so...perfect...and harmonious together. Aside from squealy Isaac, that is. Nonetheless, Xanaeya and Airetaliel seemed to have a perfect friendship going, and Xanaeya and Isaac were _so_ in love...

_Definitely fishy,_ remarked the cynical mind, stroking its chin. _It appears as though they never fight, never argue, just agree with each other and do each other's bidding..._

Jenna looked around the room, feeling a desperate urge to escape her current situation, with or without her unconscious sidekick.

_But you can't leave her! That's... inhumane!_ The good-hearted side of her wailed petulantly.

_It's a dog-eat-dog world._ The rotten-hearted side of her (otherwise known as the cynicism) said flatly.

x x x x x

Karst was having one of those days. One of those really bad, this-is-the-definition-of-a-bad-day days.

For one, Marie was dead. Jenna wouldn't care (perhaps she would be even happy), but Mars knew what Jenna's parents would do to her.

Second, that Katelyn brat was unconscious, and bleeding from her forehead. Karst didn't really care about the fact she was bleeding (maybe she'd die from blood loss and Karst wouldn't have to deal with her when she woke up), but _was_ rather concerned about what she had to do with her for the time being. People would ask if she walked to the town gates and chucked her out, but...

Aha!

Karst grinned evilly to herself, and dashed as quickly as she could back to Jenna's little home. Ignoring her parents' questions of "Where's Marie?", she ran into the other Mars Adept's room and scanned the cluttered area. There it was, on her desk. Karst lunged for it, and tossed off the hair clips and parchment lying on top of it.

With the item in hand, Karst scurried back out, once again ignoring the questions thrown her way, running all the way back to the battlefield. Marie and Katelyn were still where they were, for which Karst was glad – who knows what these "special" things were capable of, after all, even in an unconscious and totally unmoving state? Karst slowed, and strode over to Katelyn's unconscious form.

Gripping the item in one hand, Karst bent down and put the fingertips of her other hand (Who wanted to touch one of these things if they had to, after all?) on Katelyn's shoulder.

"Prox!" Karst yelled, and with a flash of Psynergetic light, they were gone.

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER EIGHT**

x x x x x

(1) – Those elves sure like playing God, hmm?

(2) – omg leik i culd RESIST. Seriously, though, I bet if you posted this on a messageboard full of those 10-year-old anime teenyboppers that think Sesshoumaru is the hottest little fluffball this side of the Western World, you'd probably get hammered. Just a thought.

(3) – I think Karst knows that move. I think.

(4) – Always with the grammatically-incorrect-Japanese uberspeshuul moves. Is that correct Japanese? I really dunno. It's supposed to mean "deadly wind" in a really abstract way, I guess, but then, I just ripped "deadly" from the English-Japansese dictionary I had, and slapped 'no' and 'kaze,' meaning "of wind" to it... Yeah. Times like these, I'm ashamed to say I'm Japanese and I am totally unable to translate.

(5) – The supertastically cheesy line found in some shape or form in bad romance novels or deathfics or whatever. Seen here for the heck of it.

(6) – Everybody wishes they had 'amethyst' colored eyes, or 'emerald' or 'ruby' hair. Whatever. You'd be a walking geologist's dream, y'know. It hurts to have little particles in your eyes, so what would you do with one the size of a dime in there?

...I'm so terribly sorry for the wait. Honest. If my writing is deader than usual, it's because I'm stressed... I get stressed very easily. Argh.

That time I said I was working on The Saturn Adept in my Kamaboko LJ? I meant it that time. :p Ye of so little faith... (Not like I blame you, though.)

x x x x x


	9. Uncle Saturos

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N: The Karst parts of this chapter came out real well. I was pleasantly surprised.

Warning! Really weird het pairing contained within! But then, to have canon!offspring!Sues, you normally have very normal pairings or very strange pairings... And you all SHOULD know I hate the really normal pairings, so I always go with the weird ones. :D

Keep in note that, like all Suethors, I have no idea where my stories'll be going. So expect some really weird plot twists...

x x x x x

Teach Saturos to completely ignore her and her sister because some chick with pink hair was sitting in his lap and being all giggly! Karst bared her teeth in the expression of a determined demon hell-bent on revenge, hauling Katelyn along with her, the Teleportation Lapis now in her pocket.

"You have a right to fear, Saturos!" Karst screamed maniacally, stomping through the stretch between the main gates and the small village itself. The snow, as usual, was deep, but there was no longer a blizzard to throw the frail people around as they went about their business. A fine powder was being sprinkled downward onto the two girls, and Karst gave another short bark of laughter and made her way towards Saturos's house, smoke filtering out his chimney in an unusually cheerful way.

Cheerful? Saturos? Karst narrowed her eyes as a gusty wind blew flakes of snow into her dark eyes, shifting Katelyn into a less cramping position in her arms. That pink-haired girl had turned him into a tame pet, hadn't she? Roaring and scaring away a pack of curious children, Karst doubled her efforts to get to his house, forcing her feet to trudge faster in the ankle-deep, quicksand-like snow.

The door made a satisfying SLAM!-ing noise as Karst burst into Saturos's brightly-lit house. Karst wasn't fazed in the slightest when the door creaked and fell off its hinges, splintering into several hundred pieces as it crashed onto the floor.

"SATUROS!" Karst shouted, looking quickly this way and that. "You slimeball!"

Karst saw something fly at her and ducked. That something flew straight over her crouched form, out the door, and into the eternal cold. Karst turned around, and saw a very pink mass splayed out on the snow.

"Serena!" A masculine voice cried out.

Karst whirled back around. Saturos stood in a nearby doorway, looking positively horrified. He dashed past the red-head and into the snow, gingerly helping the pink mass to her feet. Serena? (1)

"Saturos?" Karst ventured hesitantly. Surely, this wasn't Saturos? Saturos barely cared whether his house burned down or if Menardi walked off a cliff – it had been the talk of the town when he'd been chosen for the Lighthouse Expedition a few years ago. He seemed so indifferent, so passive... So what was that impassioned cry she'd just heard? Saturos was never 'passionate' – perhaps about fighting, but that was as far as it went. Nothing else. Nope, nada, zilch.

"Are you okay, Serena? Nothing broken, I hope?" Saturos asked the pink-haired girl, seemingly oblivious to Karst, even less Karst's confused question.

"Saturos!" Karst snapped, not used to being ignored. (It was hard to ignore a girl like Karst; everyone everywhere knew that.)

"Huh?" The blue-haired man straightened and looked back, finally noticing her with the unconscious Wind Adept still held in her arms. "...Do I know you?"

Karst stared, and then gave a blood-curdling scream.

x x x x x

Jenna paced in the front room, worried sick. Partly on cause of what to do, and partly on cause of her unconscious sidekick. She could hear Airetaliel singing softly as she concocted a potion, and the soft murmurings of the wind gusting around Xanaeya's abode. (Whoah, did she just think that?)

What would her brother do?

Well, Felix placed others' problems before his and his companions' – he seemed to have a sort of martyr complex. He had completely spazzed upon seeing the water-related problems of the residents of Altin, and had decided he needed to be the savior of the dwarfs of Loho. Hmm. But Jenna was still not her brother, and didn't have a martyr complex, nor did she need one.

What would Picard do?

Picard... Picard... Jenna struggled to remember his face, it had been such a long time since she had seen him last. Picard was a quiet, deeply philosophical Lemurian, and he probably was. Living in Lemuria all of your life normally made you like that. He would, had he been in her current situation, gone to save Sheba and then ran like the dickens back to Vale. Or perhaps some other secluded area, safe from Xanaeya and her creepy lover and Elf friend.

What would Karst do?

Blow the entire place up. Jenna frowned, but refrained from crossing her name out all the way on her mental list.

Jenna went through her entire list of friends and elders and acquaintances, reaching no good ideas. At that point in time, the Karst side of her was starting to set in, and she wanted to burn something up so _terribly_ it... burned.

_Sigh, you're doing really badly,_ Jenna. Her cynical mind said in a pitying tone. _Resorting to bad puns... Always a bad thing._

_So help me out here! Keep me from making bad puns!_ Jenna snarled at it, glaring out a window and trying to convince herself she wasn't seeing little fairies frolicking out amongst the wildflowers outside.

_Sorry, I'm just your cynical mind._ It sighed in mild annoyance_. I'm just here to be cynical, y'know? I'm not the thinking part of your brain._

_...Loser._ Jenna muttered to herself.

_I'm still a part of you, so you just called yourself a loser! Nya ha ha! _It laughed.

Jenna silently seethed as she flexed her hands, wanting something to claw at. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a scream came from the kitchen.

She first glanced at the stairway, expecting Xanaeya or Isaac or perhaps both to come running down the stairs. When neither of the two came, Jenna crept towards the kitchen, unconsciously reaching for her short sword, still strapped to her waist. (Hey, who knew? Maybe something had attacked her, and Jenna could "accidentally" take out the Elf with the beast...)

Jenna crept to the little alcove hidden behind the wall of the staircase, where Xanaeya kept the spices and things in a large cupboard. With a shriek, she jumped out, sword brandished.

Nothing but another unconscious girl on the floor.

_Panicpanicpanic!_ shrilled the cynical mind. _What do we do? Unconscious Elf! Suspicious! Highly suspicious! RUN! RUN AS THOUGH THE CHICKENS ARE AFTER – _

Jenna knelt down, waving a hand in front of Airetaliel's face, kind-of-hoping for a reaction. How would she describe the problem to Xanaeya? "Oh my goodness! She just dropped to the floor all of a sudden! I swear it wasn't me, even though I hate your 'kind' and you and Isaac and Sheba were upstairs while I was down here with her! Honest!"

_PANIC!_

x x x x x

After Karst finished her screaming, she stood staring at Saturos, breathing in long, dragging breaths. The blue-haired man gawked at her.

"...Are you sane?"

"_No, I'm not_." Karst snarled, gripping Katelyn's arm harder than she needed to and forming a nice purple bruise on her wrist. "Saturos, what happened to you between then and now?"

He blinked. "How do you know my name? And, again, do I know you?"

Saturos was about to respond when Serena, the pink-haired girl, tugged on his sleeve. Immediately, he knelt and listened as she whispered into his ear. He nodded every few moments, and with a pat to her head, rose again. Karst raised an eyebrow.

"That girl – what is her name?" Saturos asked, a hand on Serena's shoulder.

Karst was personally very offended at his question – he was asking about _Katelyn_ and apparently really didn't care much about her. Pah, still careless in that weird way of his. "It's Katelyn."

Saturos didn't notice the snow around Karst's ankles begin to melt away at an alarming rate of speed, but did notice the beady glare Karst was giving him. He turned to Serena quickly, and she whispered some more things in his ear. Karst glared venom, and if that man didn't _shrivel up and die_ sometime soon, she knew her glare was no longer effective. And if it was powerful enough to make Agatio nearly wet his pants, then it was darn well powerful enough to make – force – Saturos remember her.

"You are... Menardi's sister, correct?" Saturos asked her, standing almost protectively in front of the girl.

Karst scowled darkly. "_Yes._ Took you long enough."

Saturos continued, "And this girl's mother?" (2)

The red-head gawked silently for a moment, then began floundering for words to express her shock, her rage, her rants of _What have you been smoking recently?_. Instead, she merely screamed again.

Karst abruptly stopped, though, when Serena came plodding through the snow to throw her arms out and squeal, "Mommy!"

Then she fainted dead away.

x x x x x

Jenna was still hyperventilating and unintentionally imploding her brain when she heard Xanaeya and Isaac coming down the stairs, laughing and chatting gaily. She looking around for something to hide under, in, or behind, but found nothing. Gods were out to get her for some reason or another.

"Jenna?" Xanaeya called, looking for her first in the main sitting area, and then spotting her trying to hide behind a kitchen stool. "Jenna, what are you doing?"

"I... I... don't know..." Jenna muttered, straightening slowly and absent-mindedly adjusting her sword at her side, before her cynical mind kicked in, rolling its eyes, _That looks suspicious, you idiot._

Xanaeya gasped, hands flying to her mouth. "Airetaliel! What happened to her?"

Jenna looked around, hoping she didn't appear straight-off as the culprit. Isaac was staring at her. "I... Um, she just fainted all of a sudden... Like Sheba did, and..."

Xanaeya leaped up from her quick examination of her fallen Elf friend, eyes wide with – what, panic? fright? "There is someone or something after us!"

One of Jenna's muscles near her eye involuntarily twitched, and she took a step back. "Er, come again?"

"No, no, I have to think logically..." The blonde shook her head, radiant strands shaking like golden waterfalls. (3) "But if Sheba went, and now Airetaliel..."

The assassin suddenly lunged for Jenna, and the flame user squeaked as her hands landed on her shoulders, gripping them tightly. "X-Xanaeya?"

"You must be on your guard, Jenna! You hear me? _Be on your guard!_"

Jenna stared. Xanaeya stared back, large green eyes unblinking.

"...For what?" Jenna ventured slowly, finding her hands had somehow encircled Xanaeya's surprisingly delicate wrists in a subtle hint to stop invading her personal space.

"_Anything_. Think, Jenna! (Jenna was rather offended at this.) Your friend suddenly is unconscious, then Airetaliel – one of us is next! And even I do not know how long they will remain unconscious..."

_No! No! NOOO! I NEED MY SIDEKICK!_

Jenna felt some sort of weakness creeping up on her, starting from the backs of her knees, and when Xanaeya suddenly had four very blurry green eyes, she knew she was going to pass out. But at the _very last moment_ something kicked in, and Jenna stumbled backwards, blinking bemusedly. "...W-whoah..."

"Jenna? Are you all right?" Xanaeya moved towards her, probably to try and stable her or to check her temperature, but Jenna shook her head quickly, making the world spin topsy-turvy around her again.

"Ugh, I need to... sit down..." By herself, Jenna managed to get to the chairs she and Sheba had been discussing world perils and such in and collapsed onto one, one hand covering her eyes. (Jenna was rather proud of herself to get to the chairs without Xanaeya's assistance.) The world felt slanted to her, and everything was fuzzy...

"Jenna." Xanaeya was calling to her, but her head felt too horrible at the moment to try and form a coherent response. "_Jenna_."

"Mmrph..." croaked Jenna.

"Jenna, what you just felt, I'm sure, is what overcame Sheba and Airetaliel! But, unlike the others, you were _strong_ enough to _resist_!"

_Sheez_, Jenna thought to herself, _does this woman know she sounds an awful lot like Kraden sometimes?_

"...cannot be just aligned to Mars! You must have something else in you, to add stability..."

Jenna shot into an upright sitting position, blood surging around madly in her head and making the room shake violently again. At the moment, though, her weakness wasn't bothering her, it was what Xanaeya had just said – she was aligned to one of those weird, non-existent _elements_? What? _What?_

"...wouldn't surprise me if you're a descendant of perhaps Saturn itself..."

_Oh, screw this_, Jenna thought, and then fainted dead away. (4)

x x x x x

Karst awoke with a start from a rather hideously strange dream to find herself in an unfamiliar room, in a bed she didn't recognize at all. Logic told her that wasn't a good thing, but when the door opened, and in skipped her "daughter," Karst felt a sinking realization in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere _far, far_ away, be it at the edge of the world or in Tundaria... Just anywhere but here.

"Mommy!" Serena screeched, seeing her awake and blinking blearily at her surroundings. "Do you feel better? Does your head hurt? Are you hungry?"

Karst winced, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand. _Where's my scythe?_ She glanced over to the door, and saw it leaning against the dresser. Well, drat. No way to get to it easily... "Kid – er, Serena..."

The pink-haired girl beamed and drew closer, to the side of her "mother"'s bed.

Karst sighed, continuing to rub at her forehead in an attempt to dispel the massive migraine she had woken up with. "Who's your father?"

Serena blinked innocently, swaying back and forth slightly. "Well, Uncle Saturos (_Uncle Saturos?_ repeated Karst mentally) says his name was Sean..."

Karst stared at her daughter through her fingers. "Sean."

The girl nodded.

The Proxian resisted the urge to yank at her own hair in frustration. Who was this Sean? (5) _Sean_? She remembered no such Sean... "Ki – Serena, I've never had a husband. If I never had a husband, much less know who he is, can you tell me where you came from?"

Serena twisted a strand of pink hair around her small index finger, looking thoughtfully at her mother. "Uncle has always said it was a..." Her face scrunched up as she tried to remember the words. "A... A seam in time!"

Karst raised an eyebrow. "...Right..."

"I think he said that it was a... pair-uh-lel dih-men-shun..." Serena recited carefully, emphasizing the words, no doubt to try and impress her newly found mother.

This, however, only made Karst want to bang her head against a wall even more. "A guy named Sean, a seam in time, and a parallel dimension..." She sighed again, rubbing her eyes. "So, then, how'd you end up _here_ if you're from a _parallel dimension_?"

"I... I just appeared... Uncle Saturos found me sitting on his doorstep, and he took me in when he saw how lonely I was..." Her lower lip wobbled, and Karst tensed. _Please, not the tears..._ "I've missed you so much, Mommy! Why did you have to leave me all alone?"

Serena burst into tears and threw herself at Karst. Karst, numb with surprise, shock, and a sense of _Oh Mars, what have I done?_, allowed the girl to cling to her and sob into her shoulder.

_Somebody save me._

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER NINE**

x x x x x

(1) – Serena: the ultimate Sue name.

(2) – OMG THE PLOT TWIST.

(3) – I had to stick something like that in there for the heck of it... Those Suethors and their hideous descriptions... ;P

(4) – What's with the fainting? Oh, that always appears in Sue stories. Mostly the badly done chat/script humor fics, but hey, fainting allows a certain passage of time to occur, and it's DRAMATIC, foo. When it doubt: faint.

(5) – Kudos if you remember who this guy is. (I warned you – really strange pairings!)

Sorry for the shortness, but I didn't know how to extent this any further. This was the "OMFGWTFBBQ!" chapter. Because all Sue parody fics need one.

Hope you enjoyed!

x x x x x


	10. Plan Number One

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N: There are no words that I can say to express my sorrow, regret, and remorse for my tardiness. I just hope you all are the type to forgive and forget and still continue reading.

I cringe whenever I see the Just In page for GS. Most of the time. AND I WON'T NAME ANY NAMES, but you get my drift. There are some that need their Author's Fanfic Writing License revoked. Now. Seriously.

Now on with the fic. Which shouldn't scar your eyes too badly.

x x x x x

Jenna woke up from a perplexing dream, sweating and panting heavily. That girl she had run into – Alex's underling-turned-traitor, or such – had been in it, telling her in a very urgent voice to 'retrieve the imprisoned'... Jenna's mind hurt too much at the moment (The cynical mind being its usual snarky self and making things worse) to dwell much on that, and she simply stared up at the ceiling, trying to even out her breathing.

Once the blood quit roaring up in her head and she was no longer gasping for air, Jenna took notice of her environment. There was a soft pitter-pattering up above her (She wondered _where_, though, considering this wasn't your average home), and occasionally a soft creaking noise, probably of wood.

The door opened a bit, and Jenna, frightened, threw the covers over her head. Was she supposed to be asleep still? Was Xanaeya coming to finally do her in for _good_? With a katana? With a knife? With a –

"Jenna? Is that you?"

Jenna drew the covers down from her face slightly, surprised. "Sheba!"

The blonde girl blinked at her a few times. "Um, who else?"

Jenna sighed. "Well, there's Xanaeya and Isaac, and I wouldn't be surprised if that Elf is up and running around again..."

"Actually, they've all left."

Double-take. "_What_?"

"I said, they've all left. I think to go find someone or something to cure you – "

"_Freedom_!" Jenna screeched, throwing off the covers, and taking one bounding leap off the bed, then teetering backwards. Sheba ran to help her, but she had already flopped back onto the bed, groaning.

"Are you okay?"

"_No_," Jenna grumbled, one hand laid across her forehead. She grit her teeth in both frustration and pain. She had a chance to escape with her life, but then it turned out she wasn't feeling that well at all. Drat. "Do I _look_ – "

"It'll pass." Sheba said firmly, tugging on her wrist. "I felt the same way when I woke up and tried to move around, and the more you do, the better you feel. Trust me."

"Right. Trust you."

"Jenna, you _know_ how many times I've saved your behind during our travels, saving your dear brother much grief and agony."

"You did it for _him_," Jenna huffed. Sheba blushed for a moment, but didn't stop trying to wrench Jenna's wrist off. "Ow, _ow_! Quit that!"

"Hmph." Sheba glared at her for a moment, then released her wrist. Jenna gingerly held it, glaring back at her so-called friend. "Well, you wouldn't get up yourself..."

"That's no reason to go _breaking my wrist_," Jenna muttered, and slowly got to her feet. Sheba watched as she wobbled forward, making it to the dresser and clinging to it as her feet practically gave out underneath her.

"Come on, keep on moving!" Sheba coached from the sidelines as Jenna snarled at her and tried to get back on her feet. "To the door! Right, left, right, left!"

With Sheba's backseat-walking, Jenna managed to make it to the landing, but now the problem was _how to get down the stairs without breaking my neck._

"No. Just _no_." Jenna clung to the landing's railing with a white-knuckled deathgrip as Sheba attempted to drag her downstairs. "_NO! You can't make me go!_"

"Jenna, let's be _mature_ about this," Sheba hissed through grit teeth, trying to pull Jenna down the stairs (Though Jenna thought that, to be frank, the girl was trying to pull her arm out of its socket). "If you want to _escape_ without Xanaeya _torturing_, _mauling_, or _beheading_ you, we have to get out _now_!"

"Ooaaaooow!" was all Jenna wailed in response.

Sheba made a frustrated sound and let go of her friend's arm. Jenna immediately snapped her poor abused arm next to her chest, holding it protectively against her as she watched Sheba warily. "Okay, Jenna." Sheba breathed in deeply and exhaled slowly. "If you want to save your hide, you'll get out yourself. I'm leaving."

Jenna stared as Sheba walked down the stairs, listening to her footsteps echo back to her, then eventually fade away.

"No! _Don't leave me here by myself!_" Jenna shouted, bounding down the stairs like a madwoman. "The Elf will come and get me!"

"See?" Sheba said in her _I told you so_ voice, prying Jenna's fingers off of her shoulder before the Mars Adept could dislocate _her_ arm. "No use staying here."

"I have to find Felix." Jenna said resolutely, poking her head around the corner before descending the next few steps gingerly, like a baby taking her first steps. "I have to."

"You know where he is?"

"Uh, no. I was hoping you could me help me change the location of his whereabouts from _Unknown_ to _Somewhere nearby and can be easily saved_."

Sheba sighed and rubbed her forehead. "So, Jenna, you have _no_ idea where your older brother might be..."

"Correct." Jenna answered with a curt nod before tiptoeing down the next few steps, wobbling, and then leaping out onto the next landing, as though expecting something or someone to launch itself at her. She glanced around cautiously through narrowed brown eyes, then scuttled down the next flight of stairs. "So you'll help."

"Considering I'm a Jupiter Adept, and since I'm working with _you_, I guess I have no choice..."

"What does that mean?" She shot Sheba a suspicious look over her shoulder, and Sheba quickly averted her eyes and swallowed with some difficulty.

"Er, nothing. Stop shuffling around like that and just _get down the stairs_ already."

With some more pokes, prods, and insults from Sheba, the two girls managed to get down the stairs in one piece, more or less.

"So. What's the plan of escape?" Jenna inquired, raising one eyebrow as Sheba stopped behind her.

"Er."

"I'm assuming you have some masterful, flawless plan in that head of yours..."

"I was thinking we could go through the door?"

"Is that Plan A or Plan B?"

"Uh, Plan Number One?"

"Sounds great! Let's go." (1)

x x x x x

Karst lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling blankly and feeling quite helpless. In some nonexisting parallel dimension, she'd met this Sean guy, married him, and had Serena, and thanks to some "seam in time," she'd been deposited on Saturos' porch. Speaking of Saturos, when did he become so sweet and sugary and...

The female Proxian shuddered, clutching the blankets in fisted hands. _If just that one girl can turn Saturos into a cookie-making, house-cleaning, apron-wearing _diva_, I don't even want to know what would happen if this girl were unleashed on the rest of Weyard..._

Despite being known as quite the sinister villain, even Karst found the mere idea... appalling. Too cruel for words. Just downright _evil_.

Although, Serena _was_ her daughter... If she could...

_No. That's not what Menardi would do – if she were still right of mind – nor would that be what Saturos would, if this kid hadn't influenced him so much. That's just plain wrong._ _Detestable, they would both call it. Grrr._

The door burst open. Karst braced herself mentally. "Mommy!"

"...Hello, Serena." Karst said slowly and deliberately. The pink-haired girl smiled a most beatific smile and pounced onto the bed.

"Uncle Saturos sent me to wake you, but it looks like you already are! He's made some stew, and he says it'd be good for you, since you seem so weak." She said, continuing to smile. Karst had to look away from her angelic face (How could something so small be so very _scary_?) before the words sunk in. "Do you feel okay, Mommy? Do you have a fever? A stomachache? Cold feet? Anything?"

Well, she was feeling faint. But that was because of the kid. Did that still count? _Hmm. But I have more chances of escape if I can actually walk around, so..._ Gulping down what little remained of her pride and good sense of mind, Karst feebly smiled and said as nicely as possible, "Some water would be nice." _I have to get their guard down! But I can't do that when I feel like a sack of raw potatoes..._

Serena squealed happily for something to do for her supposed mother, and raced off, bouncing. Karst let out her breath as soon as the wooden door clicked shut, shuddering. She had a good reason for being so afraid. And if they said she didn't, well, they'd never had to deal with something like the embodiment of... sugarysweetpinkhappiness that was Serena.

She needed Menardi's guidance right now. It was just the thing, though, that she was basically imprisoned within Saturos's house, and the Lapis was probably somewhere else. Oh, and, Katelyn. Not like that girl mattered. Despite what she'd said before, she'd probably be _really_ happy to wake up to Saturos serving her good soup in an apron she could've sworn Menardi used to wear when she was a little kid.

Karst had bundled herself up in numerous blankets to disguise her disgusted-shivering as I'm-just-really-cold-shivering when Serena came back with the requested water.

x x x x x

Jenna stopped as soon as she took one step out into the freedom known as the Outside of Xanaeya's Home. She needed to find her brother. Thing was, where the heck was that little anxious bird?

"...Uh... Sheba? Did you happen to see any sparrows inside that tree?"

"...Sparrows? No, sorry. Why do you ask?"

"It's just... Oh, never mind. Are you sure you didn't?"

"Positive."

Jenna cursed quietly to herself and started to walk forward, thinking deeply about the possible locations of her brother. Being observant as she was, Sheba sped in front of her, noticed her narrowed eyes pointed at the emerald-colored blades of grass surrounding them, and decided it was safer if she led. Jenna was prone to walking into things when she was doing an uncharacteristically large amount of thinking, and she would likely set something on fire just to hide her embarrassment.

And the last thing they needed right now was a forest fire in Xanaeya's Oh-So-Speshuul Forest of Fairies and Sprites and other Whimsical Beings with Purple Sparkley Wings. (2) Sheba stifled a world-weary sigh and drew an obscenely long branch out of the way.

Unfortunately for Jenna, Sheba had a most-skewed sense of timing and let go of the branch, thinking Jenna had been close enough behind to avoid the backlash. Alas. Jenna was clotheslined most painfully, and she went down onto the leaf-strewn ground with a lady-like _whump_.

The first thought to come to the Lavileran's mind was _I'm in for it now_. The second was to flee while she had the chance, but Jenna seemed fairly spaced out and in no condition to go on a rampage. The girl could get lost without someone to follow, and Sheba knew the consequences later for leaving Jenna in an _enchanted_ forest would be quite great. She crouched down, a bit hesitant. "Uh, Jenna?"

"What is that?" Jenna asked her in return, blinking at something past her shoulder.

Sheba turned, looking around for what could have possibly caught Jenna's attention. Jenna was sometimes the most easily amused one out of their group, but considering the current circumstances...

"What is what? I don't see anything, Jenna..."

"Over _there_," the Mars Adept stressed her words by suddenly leaning forward, grabbing Sheba's face between her hands and wrenching it to the right and a bit upwards. Sheba restrained a yowl of pain.

"...Oh..." Sheba muttered, her lips feeling rather smushed together. Iris, this girl honestly didn't know her strength. She wasn't sure _what_ she was looking at, to be quite honest, but it looked intriguing enough to have caught the attention of a girl with a five-second attention span, granted there weren't any jewels, money, or other similarly-shiny things in the vicinity. "...What is it?"

"I think it's a birdcage." Jenna said firmly, finally letting go and standing abruptly. Sheba fell to the ground in her place, muttering about her face as the red-headed girl walked off a bit to do some more cage-watching. "...And there's a bird inside."

"That's normally the _point_..." Sheba grumbled, hauling herself up and checking her clothes for any stray crimson/gold/sunset orange leaves. (3) She moved over to where Jenna stood, scrutinizing the cage. "I think that's a sparrow."

"A sparrow?" Jenna suddenly went wild, and Sheba blinked once and then blinked again. She was _not_ seeing Jenna attached to the trunk of the tree, trying to scramble up the edge.

"...Um, Jenna..." Sheba started slowly, raising one hand as though it would stop anything rather painful from happening in the foreseeable future. "Are you sure this is a... _good_ idea?"

"You have any other ideas?" Jenna asked her with gritted teeth, one of her feet skidding a bit down the trunk of the tree. "Blast these trees for looking pretty and not much else!"

She was right, Sheba mused, looking around. Most were fairly skinny, with pale bark and multi-colored leaves. They all looked sort of... frail, too, now that she thought about it...

She looked up at the cage.

It was attached to a slim branch via hook. Hmm. If she could...

Sheba raised her hands, muttered a spell under her breath, and then swung outward.

The cage wriggled in the wind Sheba had conjured, and the bird inside squawked noisily as it swung precariously on the edge of the branch. It was still rocking back and forth as Jenna reached for the bottom of it...

It slid off the thin edge of the branch and went crashing down to the floor of the forest.

"Oh, good going, Sheba..." Jenna grumbled to her as she slid down the tree to the ground once more.

Sheba chuckled nervously and ran over to the cage, picking it up and presenting it to Jenna. "It doesn't look _too_ bad..."

"Mars, I think you killed him..." Jenna whispered fervently as she opened the little door to the cage and scooping up the small brown bird inside. It lay on its back, feet in the air, completely still. "_Mars, you killed him!_"

Iris, Sheba was in for it _now_. But even with her stomach in frightful knots, she had to know... "But why is that bird of any importance?"

"This is _Felix_!" Jenna cried, eyes teary.

"That's _Felix_?" Sheba was very taken aback, and stared at the little sparrow in Jenna's cupped hands.

"Yes! It's _Felix_!"

_Suddenly!_

With a noise that could only be described as '_shimmery_' and a bright yellow cloud of magic, Jenna found herself with a lapful of unconscious brother.

The two girls stared for a long while at the unconscious Venus Adept, then Jenna reached over and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck.

"Well, he's alive, at any rate..."

Sheba released a sigh of relief.

"...But now we have to get him back to Vale... Or somewhere else that's safe."

"Jenna, there's no way we can haul his dead weight even to Vale without _some_ sort of help." Ah, yes, Sheba. Always the practical one. And perhaps the pessimist.

"Yeah, well..." Jenna trailed off, staring down thoughtfully at her brother. "...Let's wake him up!"

_Oh Iris_, thought Sheba, probably for the fifth time that day. "How, exactly?"

"Umm..."

Luckily, Fate happened to be on their side for at least that one day, and Felix _suddenly_ sat straight up, staring ahead with wild, wide eyes, and he shouted, "Jenna! Sheba!" ...only Felix wasn't feeling _that_ eloquent so soon after getting banged around in a cage, so it came out more like "Jennashiba!"

The two girls stared at him blankly. Really, they were glad he was awake now, which would make their progress much easier, but now he was going off and spouting random words that sounded vaguely Lemurian. (But neither of them were Lemurian, so neither could quite say, either.) Sheba was the first to speak. "Felix? Are you feeling okay?"

Felix turned his eyes on them, rather than the large tree in the distance. "...Sheba! ...Jenna!"

"...Yeah, whatever, bro..." Jenna mumbled, scooting out from under him and standing, then reaching down to help him up.

Needless to say, the boy was still rather disoriented. He reached for her outstretched hand, then retracted his hand, staring at it in awe. The girls exchanged looks.

"Were you... a bird for that long, Felix?" Sheba asked tentatively, blinking.

And _suddenly_, the two of them found themselves with a bundle of wailing, not-very-heroic-seeming-Felix.

x x x x x

Karst sipped at her stew, warily eyeing Saturos, who stood at the foot of her bed, hands clasped before him. She still couldn't really stomach the fact he was one of the best warriors Prox had _ever_ had in its history, yet he was standing here... in a pink, frilly apron...

"So? How is it?" He asked her, actually smiling.

_He only smiles when he gets to chop things that are still alive up into little pieces..._ Karst thought to herself, suppressing a shudder. And was it just her, or had his voice up a few notes? "It's... good..."

Well, at least _that_ wasn't a lie. It was good. For Saturos's cooking, anyway.

"Really? You think so?" Saturos seemed only happier at her statement, practically bouncing with glee.

_Must not stare, _Karst thought, dutifully averting her eyes.

A thought occurred to her, then: "Say, where's Agatio?"

Saturos stopped bouncing, staring at her strangely. "Who's Agatio?" (4)

_There are no gods,_ Karst said in bewilderment to herself.

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER TEN**

x x x x x

(1) – In times of emergency, just go with the flow.

(2) – Sparkley, sparkly. Ain't it all the same in Uber-Spehshuul Sue World?

(3) – FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE, THEY ARE LEAVES. _Leaf_ them alone. (I am ded from ze pun!)

(4) – Some Sue-writers hate Felix, especially if they haven't played the second game. But nearly all Sue-writers and even some good, upstanding GS fanfic writers are loath to write Agatio's name into anything. Hum de doo. (Myself included, so...)

Aaand there you have it, people, chapter ten. Aren'tcha proud of me?

...Yeah, I turned it out before this fic became _totally_ obsolete.

x x x x x


	11. Poke Them Fuzzy Ears

**The Saturn Adept**

(Complete with boring title, unoriginal plot, and painful Mary Sue x Isaac action!)

x x x x x

A/N: Yeah, so. What else is new? Still revamping, still...doing other stuff. Bleh.

x x x x x

Okay. So.

Karst was having a rather difficult time getting her brain to wrap around her current situation. Which mostly consisted of the following (very disturbing) facts:

1. Agatio had apparently never been born, judging by Saturos's denial of his existence. (1)

2. She was the mother of some girl born through a seam in time. She'd never met the father. That was generally a bad sign.

3. Her sister was under the beck and call of some fruity non-existent Adept. Whom she had her suspicions about.

4. She had no idea where the Lapis was, as it wasn't on her, and she was quite a number of miles away from Jenna and whoever else she had managed to recruit in the meantime.

Karst gave a hearty shudder and curled up to stare out the window in contemplation. Well, hurling herself off that cliff nearby sounded like an awfully good idea now... But knowing Serena, the kid would either jump after her to join her in their own personal hell or would bring her back to life. Likely the latter.

_What happened to win-win situations?_ Karst asked herself, frowning hopelessly at the snowdrift outside.

x x x x x

"Don't worry, Felix... You'll get your legs back...soon..."

Felix gave a rather unhappy sound and sniffled pitifully at Sheba's mildly encouraging (but mostly discouraging) statement. He took another tentative step forward, flailed, and was caught by the two of them by his arms once more. "I'll slow you two down if I can't walk..."

Jenna bit back her snarky mind's comment of _Yes, that girl has to be chasing after you _any_ day now..._

"Say, Sheba," Jenna started tentatively instead, shifting her portion of Felix's weight into a more comfortable position against her neck, "Where d'you think Xanaeya went?"

"My guess would be some happy pixie land... Where the queen of the sparkly devils is one of her best friends because she saved the princess with the equally unpronounceable name..."

"...That was a non-sarcastic question, by the way..." Jenna added, perhaps a bit late.

"Oh. Well. I think she went to Vault. She mentioned it in passing to Isaac (though heavens forbid if he ever actually listens), but who knows..."

"Then... Would it be safe to go back to Vale? She's really close by."

"Any other ideas, then?"

"We could try...Lunpa..." Felix said in between haggard breaths. The girls exchanged glances.

"Felix, if you haven't already forgotten, it's nearly a day's walk from where we are..."

"Right..."

"I think you've been a bird for a little too long," Jenna said carefully, half-expecting to turn and see a beak in place of her brother's nose or some such oddity to make itself suddenly present.

Sheba suddenly stopped walking, making Felix yowl as his legs nearly gave out without her support and Jenna curse under her breath as Felix nearly took her down with him. "...Do you feel something?"

"Why yes. It's called Felix's arm," Jenna muttered, grunting as she dragged Felix back up. Much to her further frustration, Sheba ducked under Felix's arm and scurried off into a thicker clump of trees. "Sheba, don't be stupid – " She'd completely disappeared into the still-sparkly underbrush. "Gah."

Jenna stopped and thought a moment. She was standing in the middle of this forest which on the map appeared atrociously small in comparison with even a slightly larger forest like Kolima, but it felt...enormous. And the grass was sparkling an unnatural emerald green sort of color. (She was tempted to lean down and snap some off and examine it, and sell it off at a ridiculous price if it actually was, but then her brother was relying on her for support, and she loved Felix just _that_ much that he barely won over some faux-AstroTurf.) Sheba had suddenly deserted them, apparently hearing things in her head (Jenna couldn't blame her; they all had a breaking point with these _things_), and she was left in this surprisingly big forest with a movement-disabled brother.

She didn't try stifling the aggravated, tired sigh that dragged itself out of her mouth. Felix glanced at her worriedly.

"What's wrong, Jenna?"

"Plenty," replied Jenna, but she didn't care to elaborate much. Felix had enough problems as it was (She noticed him eyeing the ground; his sparrow scavenging instincts were slowly taking over), re-mastering the ability to walk was just one of an entire list. Jenna, well. Jenna had blonde-haired blue/green/purple/grey/#CC3399-eyed problems as of late. And a drooling fanboy that called itself her former best friend.

"LET GO OF ME!" Jenna and Felix's heads snapped up in unison at the scream – specifically, Sheba's scream. "AAAAH! JENNAAA!"

"...Oh no." Jenna muttered, stumbling over to the base of a somewhat sturdy-looking tree, setting Felix gingerly down by it. "Stay here, bro, I'll see to Sheba and whatever's attacking her..."

She ignored Felix's glum look at being unable to be the dashing hero of the day and quickly crept off in the general direction Sheba had left in, drawing the short sword that had conjured itself up by her side, though she had thought she'd left it back at Xanaeya's treehouse. (2)

"Sheba?" Jenna called, eyes darting quickly from side to side, her steps wary, sword held at the ready by her side. "Sheba!"

There was a crashing sound in the underbrush nearby, but Jenna was unable to tell where exactly it came from. Blasted magical forests, they distorted sound and distance...

She saw a grey blur out of the corner of her eye and threw herself to the ground as a vaguely human-like form jumped at where her head had been a few moments earlier.

_Oh good Sol,_ Jenna thought to herself, rolling to her feet and holding her sword out before her, looking over the wolf/human-like beast before it looked up at her. She knew from experience not to look monsters in the eye, it tended to make them lunge at you with their pointy weapons and claws.

The half-beast thing had mostly silverish fur with lightning-blue streaks along its sides and up the edges of its tail. It stood on its hind legs, which looked like the average wolf's, while its forelegs were bandaged human hands with dark nails.

Jenna couldn't mentally describe it in all its feral beauty/glory before it jumped at her again, but she was actually waiting for it to do so and ducked and swerved, scoring a slash on one of its arms before she moved away again.

She wasn't expecting it to attack again so soon though, and was caught off-guard when it sprang off the trunk of a tree with its powerful hind legs, claws out and reaching for her.

"_Ray!_"

The beast crumpled, smoking slightly. The smell of singed flesh was fresh in the air, and Jenna unconsciously took some steps backward, blinking slowly.

"Jenna? Jenna! Oh good, you're okay..." Sheba appeared a clump of trees, circling around the fallen wolf-thingie to reach her friend. "...Wait, _are_ you okay?"

"Fine... I just...almost lost my life to one of those...things..." That and there were still big patches of white circling around in front of her. Stupid Sheba, wasn't she aware of the damage bright lights like that could cause?

"There are worse fates," Sheba said with a little shrug, turning to look at the form lying nearby. "Is that...what I think it is?"

"Half-human, half-wolf? Yeah." Jenna answered blankly, before shaking her head and attempting to clear her vision properly. "A _girl_, no less."

"...Great. I don't want to know how she came into this world."

Jenna took a few careful steps towards the unconscious half-human, sword still out and at the ready. She noticed her face was still young, and she was probably no older than they were, at least by appearance. And, of course, she was pretty. Maybe not as much as Xanaeya, but she came close. Her hair was an interesting shade of blue, not as sea-greenish as Mia's, more on the blue-black end of the scale. She had...wolf ears. Sticking out of her head. (3)

_She goes around and kills things and acts like a savage and she _still _has no split ends._ The cynical mind sneered, tut-tut-ing disapprovingly. _For goodness's sake, can't we just be normal here?_

Jenna's attention was more riveted to the wolf ears. They looked real. And were fuzzy. She was suddenly filled with the urge to poke them, but a rustling sound behind them thankfully diverted that train of thought.

"Jenna? What's going on?" Felix's breathing was labored as he limped over to them, and Sheba rushed to help. Jenna looked aghast at his attempts to move when she had explicitly told him to stay put, but gestured weakly at the girl nearby. "...Who is she?"

"We'd like to know too. Or...maybe not." Sheba pulled him even with Jenna, and the three of them simply stared down at her for a while. "She's...half-wolf."

"How is that possible?" Felix said after a long stretch of time had flit on by.

"...We don't know. And we aren't taking theories or suggestions." Sheba said, glancing over at Jenna.

"Uh, hey, Jenna... What...are we going to do now?"

"Sheba..." Jenna started thoughtfully, as though she hadn't said anything at all, "what was it you..._felt_ when you ran off before?"

The younger girl stared at her for a moment, the question taking some time to process by its absurdity in light of their current situation. "Er, well... I just felt this strong surge of..._something_. Like it was trying to draw me there, and that sensation won over the screaming rationality in my head and I just went toward it."

Jenna continued to stare at the form lying in a pile before them, thinking. Just what was going on? Sheba had fainted, Xanaeya had "healed" her, then the trio of All Things Evil had up and left to find her some sort of potion or elixir, they'd escaped and had not yet been tracked down, had found Felix, changed him back to human form, Sheba's tingly Jupiter sense, and now this...thingie. "It doesn't add up," she murmured softly to herself, stroking her chin.

Sheba stared at her, wondering if she was trying to look intelligent. Felix knew she was failing.

The supposedly unconscious girl on the leaf-strewn floor of the forest gave a barely audible moan, her ears twitching and eyelids fluttering.

"Sheba," Jenna intoned gravely, as though what they were about to exercise was an everyday-occurrence.

Jenna's sidekick dutifully reached around and clapped her hand over Felix's eyes. (Felix whined, naturally, but what they didn't know was that it was more out of curiosity than sudden love or lust.)

Jenna raised her sword before her again as the girl grumbled something to herself and rose slightly. Then she looked up, and before Jenna could avert her eyes, their gazes locked.

The Mars Adept swore in her head, and her cynical mind nodded smugly in agreement.

"Are you...?" The wolf-girl said hopefully, raising one clawed hand slowly toward her. She stopped as Jenna's sword jerked towards her, and she frowned. "I...I won't hurt you."

"So what the heck do you call pouncing and lunging at my head?" Jenna snapped, sword listing to and fro slightly as she spoke.

The girl looked downwards, her face sad. "I'm sorry... Did I...do that?"

"Yes. A lot, actually."

"I'm so sorry!" Jenna wasn't prepared when she jumped up and grasped her hands, sword and all, between her bandaged palms. "Please forgive me! Please! I swear I won't do it again!"

Jenna blinked at her, then down at their hands.

"Is it...split personality disorder, or something similar?" Sheba asked gingerly, one hand still protecting Felix's eyes.

"When the moon is full out, it normally makes me turn full-wolf... But as of late, when I enter any forest, I do that. It's...unnatural." She released Jenna's hands, looking down at her feet shyly.

_Oh look what's talking!_ the cynical mind jeered, crossing its arms. _Half-wolf and half-human? And unnatural? WHAT?_

"And...what's stopping you now?" Jenna raised one eyebrow, lowering her short sword, but barely.

"I think...when that bolt of lightning hit me... It jumpstarted my human brain. So, uh, thank you for that," she said, bowing slightly towards Sheba, looking sheepish. "My name is Lycoris, just so you know. What friends I have call me Cori, though. (4)"

Jenna had her suspicions, but while she had been mulling over her and Sheba's recent adventures together, she had recalled that mysterious woman-from-the-waterfall's words – _They should trust you...And so, once they trust you, they'll begin to tell you things... Little details. Pay attention to those; they're priceless in order to defeat them._ She'd forgotten her words as of late, but they'd decided to come back from whatever vacation they'd taken themselves on and had barged right into her headspace.

_Okay, brain. When the moon's out, she goes rabid. When she enters forests, apparently by herself, she goes rabid. Attacking her returns her to normal; is that a good thing or not? She doesn't have many friends, she has no split ends, la-dee-da-la-dee..._

_I'm afraid to tell you, Jenna, that this isn't working,_ the cynical mind told her frankly.

"Do you live around here?" Sheba had continued quizzing the wolf-girl while Jenna had gone introspective on them.

"Well, I used to... A long time ago, there was a clan of my kind living around here and near the northern mountain range. But townspeople hated us and we were a shunned race, and over time, we slowly died off from the elements and from the hunters. My mother and my younger siblings lived in a cave not too far from here, but my mother died from disease, and left me with her last litter and some of the older pups. I've been taking care of them since. (5)"

"Okay..." Jenna knew she would've probably had a notebook and a pencil out and would have been jotting down notes had she not had to protect Felix's good sanity. "How many siblings do you have?"

"Six others." (6)

_Yowch,_ the cynical mind grumbled, the only sympathy it had ever shown towards one of the sparkley female beasts.

"Say... Do you know a Saturn Adept by the name of Xanaeya?" Jenna cut in before Sheba could ask another question and get the reasoning for Lycoris's wandering about and leaving the tots to fend for themselves, wherever they were.

"A Saturn Adept? Xanaeya? No... I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

"...No reason. She lives around here, in a tree you _should_ be able to see for miles..."

"Oh... Really? I only arrived on the outskirts of this forest a few hours ago, but then...whatever it was that makes me go crazy kicked in, and...you know the rest. I came here to forage for some food to take back to my family..."

_And I was hoping we wouldn't have to learn about that part,_ the cynical mind sighed with a roll of its eyes.

"Would you like to meet them?" Lycoris asked out of the blue, clasping her hands together in a strangely eager looking way before her.

"Uhh... Jenna?"

_We need to get away and stay away from Xanaeya, if for a little while... She doesn't come off as one of the worser ones... And as long as we're here, maybe Felix will be okay for a while._ "As long as we aren't intruding on your space, of course."

Sheba was staring at her funny. Jenna rarely gave such gracious-sounding answers to these monstrosities of nature.

"We'll have to get what I came for before we leave, though... Would you help?"

"Sure. What are you looking for?"

Sheba was starting to get worried. Very, _very_ worried. Especially when Lycoris smiled and turned and began walking off, and Jenna caught up with her and struck up a conversation anew.

"Sheba? Can I see now?"

"...I'd rather you not risk it, Felix," Sheba said, tugging him forward into the depths of the forest.

x x x x x

Karst was woken from her light nap with a soft knocking at the door. Mumbling drowsily, she managed a "Come in" and had straightened herself up on her pillows before the door opened.

She couldn't believe her eyes.

"Agatio!" She whispered, amazed, eyes wide. "What are you...?"

"Keep it down, keep it down..." Agatio shushed her, tiptoeing inside and closing the door quietly behind him. "You okay, Karst?"

"Eh, I've been better," she replied softly, shrugging one shoulder. "How'd you get here? And...why do you even exist, if Saturos denies you do?"

"Ex_cuse_ me," the other Proxian warrior grumbled, setting himself down on the floor on the other side of her bed, out of immediate sight from the doorway. "I do exist, thank you very much. Saturos just can't see me, the big pansy."

Karst blinked down at him. "He can't _see you?_"

"Invisible to him just as much as the wind on a sunny day is," Agatio affirmed, crossing his muscular arms over his chest. He leaned his head back on the nightstand, sighing in the way one does after traveling the world without rest. "It's a crazy world out there, Karst, and I think we're the only ones who can stop it."

"You said that when Menardi set the house next door on fire," Karst said with a roll of her eyes. "Did you see Serena?"

"Your daughter?" Agatio gave her a quick grin, and as Karst scowled down at him, he said, "Yeah, I did. She's pretty cute, what with having supposedly come from you, huh?"

"Agatio, if I wasn't so glad to see you right now I'd twist that head off your neck and – "

"Okay, okay... I was just kidding, she'd probably just another figment of somebody else's imagination."

"...What?" Karst's eyes went wide again. "A figment of...somebody else's imagination?"

Agatio nodded gravely. "They exist, but not in the same way we do. Some higher-up made them, and just dumped 'em here, I think, and left us to deal with them."

"As some form of cruel punishment, I bet..." Karst groaned, sinking down into her fluffy pillows.

"Yeah, probably. So... I was thinking, Karst... We need to get you out of here."

"No, really?" Karst gave him a weak but good-natured smirk from her reclining position. "You know, Jenna dropped by a while ago, and she dragged me back to Vale with Menardi... Menardi was whisked away by a male version of one of those creepos, and then Jenna left with one of our bigger problems, along with Sheba. Then I ended up fighting with another one that's here, and in order to keep the citizens happy, I took Jenna's Teleportation Lapis and brought her here."

"Why _here?_ If Saturos was in his right mind, he'd probably skewer you."

"Yeah, well... Saturos hasn't been much help since before I left, so I thought I'd just do it out of spite, but he seems to enjoy doting over my 'daughter' and the annoying brat I brought along. So, if we escape somewhere, our safest bet would be – "

Wait a moment. Was Vale really all that safe, if freakshows like Marie and Katelyn and Xanaeya (_shudder_) were running amok there? And even _if_ Agatio really was invisible as he claimed to be... How did she know they wouldn't be able to see him, fluke or otherwise? But Jenna was still in the vicinity, as least before she'd teleported, and Jenna, being Jenna, probably needed assistance...

"...To teleport outside of Vale." Karst finished after a moment, staring up at the ceiling. Getting in was easier than getting out. People wondered if you left hastily, rather than entered, when they'd already seen you wandering around town with one of the Golden Heroes. "We need to find Jenna, wherever she's gone."

"Crazy world indeed, if you've agreed to help her..."

Karst sighed. "You don't know _half_ of it."

x x x x x

**END CHAPTER ELEVEN**

x x x x x

(1) – Ah, Agatio. Where art thou in recent fics? Yeah, I had to stick him in there somewhere. And Vyc might come after me with a meat cleaver for doing what I did to him, but I had to. There had to be _one_ guy completely unaffected by Sue Charm (tm).

(2) – I have no recollections as of what Jenna did with her sword. I doubt I mentioned it anywhere, so...yep.

(3) – I had to stick in an Inuyasha-like reference _some_where, y'know. I hate the word 'youkai' now. Especially when it's used in tandem with 'half-'.

(4) – 'Lycoris' sounds like licorice to me. I chose it because it means 'twilight.' :P And don't you hate it when Sues shorten their names to a nickname _no actual person_ would _ever_ use? At least, I wouldn't. I have friends with shortened names, but they're reasonable. Like Matt and JT. _Cori?_ When her name is likely pronounced '_lih-core-iss_'? '_Lai-core-iss'_ at a stretch?

(5) – I don't know what I can say about this, but in my lifetime as a Suethor, I've never made a character with this kind of backstory. But...it's over-used, like everything else is. And notice how Sheba asks whether she lives around there or not, and instead of saying 'yes' or 'no' like any other normal half-wolf girl, she answers with her history. Yerp.

(6) – I don't think this is actually _possible,_ but I don't know much about lycanthropy or wolves.

This chapter was a little...lacking, I think. So it's unjustified, what with my long absences between chapters... But I stated earlier I have little to no ideas, so... That's my excuse. And, er. If any of you are wondering about how time works in this fic... I realized that, too. Think of it as a Sue-fic, if you will – some Suestories have no sense of time whatsoever. They just keep going on. With angst. With tears. With badly-done 12-year-old-written-smut. Whatever. If it makes you feel better, y'know...

Agatio's "theory" suddenly came to me in a flash of inspiration, so I'll work on it. Heheh.

x x x x x


End file.
